Intro to Psychology Areas and Applications - Chapter 16: Treatment of psychological disorders (con't)

Why do insight therapies work?

They work through the strong bond formed between the therapist and client, which enables support, empathy, and overall progress

Effectiveness of insight therapies

The greatest improvement early in treatment (roughly the first 10 to 20 weekly sessions), with further gains gradually diminishing over time

Spontaneous remission

When psychological disorders sometimes clear up on their own

Couples or marital therapy

Involves the treatment of both partners in a committed, intimate relationship, in which the main focus is on relationship issues

Family therapy

Involves the treatment of a family unit as a whole, in which the main focus is on family dynamics and communication

Family therapy (con’t)

Often emerges out of efforts to treat children or adolescents with individual therapy

Goals of couples and family therapy

• They seek to understand the entrenched patterns of interaction that produce distress

• They seek to help couples and families improve their communication and move toward healthier patterns of interaction

Group therapy

The simultaneous treatment of several clients in a group (ideally six to eight participants) where members describe their problems, trade viewpoints, share experiences, and discuss coping strategies

Group therapy (con’t)

Can help save time and money, which can be critical in understaffed mental hospitals and other institutional settings

Well-being therapy

Developed by Giovanni Fava and colleagues and seeks to enhance clients’ self-acceptance, purpose in life, autonomy, and personal growth

Positive psychotherapy

Attempts to get clients to:

• Recognize their strengths

• Appreciate their blessing

• Savour positive experiences

• Forgive those who have wronged them

• Find meaning in their lives

Psychoanalysis

An insight therapy that emphasizes the recovery of unconscious conflicts, motives, and defences through techniques such as free association and transference

Free association

When clients spontaneously express their thoughts and feelings exactly as they occur, with as little censorship as possible

Dream analysis

A psychoanalytic technique in which the therapist interprets the symbolic meaning of the client's dreams.

Resistance

Largely unconscious defensive manoeuvres intended to hinder the progress of therapy due to clients not wanting to face the painful, disturbing conflicts that they have buried in their unconscious

Transference

When clients start relating to their therapists in ways that mimic critical relationships in their lives.

e.g. A client might start relating to a therapist as if the therapist were an overprotective mother, a rejecting brother, or a passive spouse

Transference (con’t)

Psychoanalysts often encourage transference so that clients can re-enact relations with crucial people in the context of therapy, as they can help bring repressed feelings and conflicts to the surface, allowing the client to work through the conflicts

Psychodynamic approaches

Adaptations of psychoanalysis to different cultures, changing times, and new kinds of patients

Central features of modern psychodynamic theories

• a focus on emotional experience,

• exploration of efforts to avoid distressing thoughts and feelings,

• identification of recurring patterns in patients’ life experiences,

• discussion of experience, especially events in early childhood,

Central features of modern psychodynamic theories (con’t)

• Analysis of interpersonal relationships,

• A focus on the therapeutic relationship itself, and

• Exploration of dreams and other aspects of fantasy life

Client-centred therapy

An insight therapy developed by Carl Rogers that emphasizes providing a supportive emotional climate for clients, who play a major role in determining the pace and direction of their therapy.

Client-centred therapy (con’t)

Incongruence makes people feel threatened by realistic feedback about themselves from others, which leads to reliance on defence mechanisms, to distortions of reality, and to stifled personal growth

E.g. If you inaccurately viewed yourself as a hard-working, dependable person, you’d feel threatened by contradictory feedback from friends or co-workers

Therapeutic climate

Rogers believed it’s important for the therapist to provide a warm, judgement free, supportive climate that creates a safe environment in which clients can confront their shortcomings without feeling threatened

Therapeutic process

The client and therapist work together as equals, where the therapist provides relatively little guidance and keeps interpretation and advice to a minimum, while the therapist provides feedback to help clients sort out (clarify) their feelings

Emotion-focused couples therapy

Assumes that the relationship is not providing for the attachment needs of the relationship partners

Emotion-focused couples therapy process

1. The nature of the relationship issues and underlying emotions is first identified

2. The partners are then allowed to identify and acknowledge their needs,

3. The partners are encouraged to express these needs and to arrive at solutions to the problems