Disorders

Research and Ethics

Treatment 3 - Psychotherapy

Cognitive Therapy:

Freud was right about maladaptive thoughts and behaviors causing disorders

Cognitive Triad:

  • Negative conscious thoughts about self, world and future all interact with each other to perpetuate a cycle of depression and anxiety, reinforcing negative beliefs and influencing emotional well-being.

Behavior Therapy:

Observable conditioning, rewards, punishment

Oldest (besides Freud)

Most Effective

Systematic Desensitization: gradual exposure to the object

  • only works on phobias

as close to a panacea as we can get

100% success rate

Problem: Another phobia will pop out because some people are phobia prone, relapse rate

→ choose another less maladaptive phobia

Flooding: bombarding person with whatever they’re scared of

Today, it is often paired with fear hierarchies

  • knocking down phobias from maladaptive to less and less maladaptive

Aversion therapy: programming association (usually nausea and drugs)

  • ex. alcoholics take a pill every day that makes you ill if you have alcohol

  • high chance for relapse

Token economics: good things get rewarded

  • ex. schizophrenics get a token every 10 min they go without talking about delusions and tokens cashed in for something they like (hour on TV)

  • schizophrenia most commonly use token economics

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy:

Probably what you get from your therapist

Combined behavioral and cognitive therapy

Behavioral:

  • managing the emergency response system (biofeedback)

  • ex. relaxing body when feeling anxious

Cognitive:

  • thought substitution - substituting maladaptive thoughts

  • replace catastrophic thoughts, external locus of control with “healthy” thoughts

  • ex. teach yourself that you have control to get rid of external locus of control

Dialectical Behavior Therapy:

  • validate positives, confront negatives

Research shows that CBT is the most effective of the psychotherapies

Humanist Therapy

Empowering

Therapist as partner

  • person centered therapy

Journey to reach best version

Group therapy very common, grew out of the humanist approach

  • feeling of camaraderie

  • “I won’t drink so I don’t let my group down”