Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy / Insight and Biomedical Therapy Notes

Psychotherapy:

-              Identify a problem and develop solutions usually by talking and thinking

Thinking errors:

-              We tend to generalize thinking errors when suffering conflict, poor stability, or stressful events

Confidentiality and the Law:

-              Psychotherapists and psychiatrists are required by law to protect the confidentiality of their clients

-              Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), sets limits on the way patient or client information can be shared

-              Therapists can break confidentiality when people are a threat to themselves or others (also court orders)

Behavior Therapy (utilizes conditioning ideas):

-              The techniques used in this type of treatment are based on the theories of classical conditioning and operant conditioning

-              Goal is to extinguish unwanted behavior and replace it with more adaptive behavior

-              Behavioral therapy is action-based

Exposure Treatments:

-              Exposure therapy is a technique in behavior therapy to treat anxiety disorders. Exposure therapy involves exposing the target patient to the anxiety source or its context without the intention to cause any danger

Flooding (ripping the band-aid off):

-              Exposing people to fear-invoking objects or situations intensely and rapidly

-              It is often used to treat phobias. During the process, the indi. is prevented from escaping or avoiding the situation

-              A phobia is a learned fear, and needs to be unlearned by exposure to the thing that you fear

Systematic Desensitization:

-              Developed by Joseph Wolpe, a client makes a list of fears and then learns to relax while concentrating on these fears

-              Client learns to practice deep relaxation, created hierarchy of anxieties (lowest to highest stimulus)

-              Led by therapist, client is introduced to the least feared object during deep relaxation then next, etc.

Aversion Therapy:

-              Classical conditioning, pair undesirable behavior with negative stimuli —> in the hope that the unwanted behavior will eventually be reduced

Aversion Therapy (example)

a person that is an alcoholic, takes a medication so that when they drink alcohol they feel nauseous

Token Economy (ON AP EXAM):

-              behavioral strategy relies on reinforcement to modify behavior. Clients are allowed to earn tokens that can be exchanged for special privileges or desired items

-              Tokens: Items include poker chips, stickers, point tallies, or play money

Token Economy (example)

chuck-e-cheese or bear tickets from Mrs. Baker’s class

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapists:

-              Human emotions and behavior are predominantly generated by ideas, beliefs, attitudes, and thinking

Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) – way more directive:

-              Developed in 1950s by Albert Ellis, psychological problems arise when thoughts are irrational and lead to behavioral consequences that are distressful

-              Restructuring, bring client’s attention to the unrealistic thoughts

Aaron Beck’s Cognitive Therapy:

-              Based on the idea that how we think (cognition), how we feel (emotion) and how we act (behavior) all interact together

-              You will learn skills that help you change your thinking patterns so they are more accurate with respect to a given situation

_____ is used everywhere

scaling

Scaling (example)

on a scale of 1-10, how mad are you at your mom?

miracle question

get the client to give you the solution

CBT Video Notes:

-              ABC method: activating event, belief (thoughts), consequence (emotion)

-              Thoughts affect our feelings

-              Feelings (mood) affect our thoughts

-              Goal: disrupt the downward spiral (technique to not catastrophize)

-              Rarely about the situation  its about your belief about the situation

REBT is more _____

direct

CBT is more _____ _____

question oriented

Insight Therapies:

-              Designed to help clients understand the causes of their problems. This understanding or insight will then help clients gain greater control over their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors

-              Psychodynamic, humanistic, and gestalt therapies

Psychoanalytical therapy

-              The primary focus of ______ therapy is to uncover the unconscious content of a client’s psyche in order to alleviate psychic tension

-              To resolve unconscious conflicts psychoanalysis involves going back to discover the roots of the problem

-              Con: took too much time

-              Ex. what happened in your childhood

Free Association:

-              Client spontaneously reports thoughts, feelings, and mental images that come to mind (no censorship)

-              The psychoanalyst asks questions to encourage the flow of associations in order to provide clues as to what the patient’s unconscious wants to hide

-              As trust increases, ego will lower to reveal unconscious

Resistance “mental blocks”:

-              the patient’s conscious or unconscious attempt to block disturbing memories, motives, and experiences (sensitive material)

-              The analyst will note your resistance and then provide insight into its meaning

Transference:

-              The process by which a patient projects or transfers unresolved conflicts and feelings onto the therapist

-              Freud believed that transference helps patients gain insight by reliving painful past relationships

-              The job of the therapist is to detect when transference is happening and help patient understand what it reveals

Psychodynamic thearpy:

-              Evolved from Freud’s original approach, based on the ideas that a person’s development is often determined by forgotten events in early childhood, human behavior and dysfunction are largely influenced by the unconscious (neo-freudians)

-              Less expensive and extensive therapy

-              The relationship between client and therapist as an agent of chang

Humanistic Therapy (personal growth):

-              Aim to boost self-fulfillment by helping people grow in self-awareness and self-acceptance

-              The present and future more than the past

-              They explore feelings as they occur rather than achieving insights into the childhood origins of the feelings

-              Conscious rather than unconscious thoughts

Person-Centered (Rogerian Therapy) (humanistic):

-              One of the most widely used models in psychotherapy today developed by Carl Rogers. Nondirective therapy, the therapist listens, w/o judgment or interpreting, and seeks to refrain from directing the client toward certain insights

-              More reflective less directive

-              Therapist uses GUE

-              Genuineness, unconditional positive regard, empathy

-              Active listening:

paraphrase what the client says, echoing, restating, and seeking clarification of what the person expresses, and acknowledging the expressed feelings

Gestalt Therapy:

-              Developed by Fritz Perls, therapists goal is to push clients to decide whether they will allow past conflicts to control their future or whether they will take control of their own destiny

-              Empty-chair technique: in which a patient sits in front of an empty chair and imagines that the person to who she/he need to express their feelings is in the chair

Group Therapy:

-              Small group, usually around 6-12 peeps

-              Provides a vital element to mental healing knowing you are not alone

-              Enables therapist to treat more clients at same time, less expensive