Mental and Physical Health Detailed Notes

Unit 5: Mental and Physical Health

This unit explores psychological disorders, their treatment, and psychological health.

Clinical psychologists focus on the definition, diagnosis, and treatment of psychological disorders. Content can be found in most AP Psychology textbooks in the "Psychological Disorders" and "Treatment" chapters.

Health Psychology

Learning Objectives:

Stress
Positive psychology

Key Terms:

Eustress: Positive and motivating stress.
Distress: Negative and debilitating stress.
Stressors: Life events that cause stress.
General adaptation syndrome (GAS): The general response humans and other animals have to a stressful event.
Alarm reaction: The first stage of GAS, characterized by increased heart rate and blood diverted to muscles.
Resistance: The second stage of GAS, where the body remains physiologically ready, but resources can be depleted.
Exhaustion: The final stage of GAS, where the body's resources are depleted, leading to vulnerability to disease.
Hypertension: High blood pressure.
Immune suppression: Decreased ability to produce white blood cells.
Tend-and-befriend theory: Managing stress by seeking social connections and self-care.
Emotion-focused coping: Stress management techniques like meditation and breathing exercises.
Positive psychology: The study of how humans flourish and improve their lives.
Happiness: A state of well-being.
Subjective well-being: A sense of satisfaction with life overall.
Virtues: Character strengths.
Wisdom: Using information creatively and being open-minded.
Courage: Persistence, integrity, and bravery.
Humanity: Appreciation, kindness, and interest in others.
Justice: Striving to be a socially responsible citizen.
Temperance: Moderation and self-control.
Transcendence: Seeing beyond oneself and valuing connection with the world.
Well-being: Perception of effective functioning in personal life and groups.
Gratitude: Thankfulness toward others.
Resilience: Ability to adapt effectively when faced with trauma.
Post-traumatic growth: Constructing meaningful experiences in response to trauma.

Overview

Psychological factors impact physical and mental health. Psychologists study encouraging healthy lives, stress management, emotional growth, and mental illness.

Stress

Stress and emotion are connected. Stress can be positive (eustress) or negative (distress). Stress can refer to life events (stressors) or reactions to environmental changes (stress reactions).

Measuring Stress

Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe created the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS) to measure stress using life change units (LCUs). Changes in life are assigned LCU values; major changes increase the SRRS score. Positive events, such as marriage, can have as many or more LCUs than negative events. A high SRRS score correlates with a higher likelihood of stress-related diseases. Later research created tools that take into account individual stress perceptions, which correlates even higher with the onset of diseases.

General Adaptation Syndrome

Hans Selye's general adaptation syndrome (GAS) describes the general response humans and other animals have to a stressful event. It consists of three stages:

Alarm Reaction: Heart rate increases, blood is diverted to muscles, and the sympathetic nervous system is activated.
Resistance: The body remains physiologically ready, and hormones are released. Prolonged resistance can deplete resources.
Exhaustion: The parasympathetic nervous system returns the body to normal. Vulnerability to disease increases, especially after an extended resistance stage.

Excessive stress can contribute to physical diseases (ulcers, heart conditions) and emotional difficulties (depression). Chronic stress can cause hypertension and immune suppression.

Managing Stress

Tend-and-befriend theory: Seeking self-care needs and attending to the needs of others to reduce stress.
Emotion-focused coping: Using stress management techniques such as meditation and breathing exercises.

Perceived Control

A perceived lack of control over events increases the harmful effects of stress. Control over events tends to lessen stress, while a perceived lack of control generally makes the event more stressful.

Positive Psychology

The field of positive psychology emerged in the 1990s. Positive psychology shares the optimistic focus of humanistic psychology but is committed to supporting its theories with empirical evidence from research studies. Positive psychology researches how humans can flourish, maximize their potential, achieve happiness, and improve the quality of our lives. Subjective well-being is a sense of life satisfaction.

Positive psychologists measure and study character strengths or virtues and how use of these strengths relate to life satisfaction and achievement. These virtues are consistent across religions and philosophies: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence.

Wisdom: Using learned information creatively; open-mindedness; curiosity.
Courage: Persistence, integrity, and bravery.
Humanity: Appreciation, kindness, and interest in others.
Justice: Striving to be a socially responsible citizen.
Temperance: Moderation and self-control.
Transcendence: Seeing beyond oneself and valuing connection with the world.

Well-being and Gratitude

Well-being refers to our perception of how effectively we function in our personal lives and our role in the groups to which we belong. Well-being is an overall perception of the quality of our lives. Research indicates a connection between well-being and gratitude. Practicing gratitude increases happiness and satisfaction.

Resilience

Resilience is the ability to adapt effectively when faced with trauma and extreme stress. Some people experience post-traumatic growth after negative experiences.

Even in difficult situations, positive psychologists focus on how people can flourish. Post-traumatic growth is the ability to construct a meaningful experience in response to trauma.

Psychological Disorders

Learning Objectives:

Defining psychological disorders
Categories of disorders
The advantages and disadvantages of diagnostic labels

Key Terms:

Dysfunction: Inability to function normally in daily life.
Distress: Causing emotional pain and suffering.
Deviance: Differing from what is typical or normal.
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM): A manual used to diagnose psychological disorders.
Adverse childhood experiences (ACES): Traumatic events experienced during childhood.
Maladaptive learned associations: Learned connections that cause problems.
Sociocultural perspective: Emphasizing the role of society and culture in disorders.
Racism: Prejudice and discrimination based on race.
Sexism: Prejudice and discrimination based on sex.
Ageism: Prejudice and discrimination based on age.
Discrimination: Unfair treatment based on group membership.
Biological perspective: Focusing on biological factors as causes of disorders.
Biopsychosocial view: Emphasizing the interaction of biological, psychological, and social factors.
Diathesis-stress model: Stressors trigger the expression of a biological predisposition.
Stressors: Environmental factors that cause stress.
Eclectic: Using ideas from a variety of perspectives.
Psychoanalytic/psychodynamic perspective: Emphasizing unconscious conflicts.
Humanistic perspective: Focusing on feelings, self-esteem, and self-concept.
Behavioral perspective: Emphasizing learning and reinforcement.
Cognitive perspective: Focusing on thoughts and beliefs.
Biological/biomedical perspective: Emphasizing biological factors.
Autism spectrum disorder: A neurodevelopmental disorder affecting social interaction.
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): A neurodevelopmental disorder affecting attention and activity level.
Anxiety disorders: Disorders characterized by anxiety.
Specific phobia: Intense fear of a specific object or situation.
Arachnophobia: Fear of spiders.
Agoraphobia: Fear of open or public spaces.
Social anxiety disorder: Fear of social situations where one could embarrass oneself.
Taijin kyofusho: A Japanese social anxiety disorder involving fear of displeasing others.
Generalized anxiety disorder: Constant, low-level anxiety.
Panic disorder: Acute episodes of intense anxiety.
Panic attacks: Sudden episodes of intense fear.
Ataque de nervios: A Caribbean culture manifestation of panic attack symptoms.
Acrophobia: Fear of heights.
Dissociation: A disruption in conscious processes.
Dissociative amnesia: Inability to remember things without a physiological cause.
Dissociative identity disorder: Having multiple personalities.
Dissociative disorders: Disorders involving dissociation.
Major depressive disorder: A common mood disorder characterized by prolonged unhappiness.
Persistent depressive disorder: Long-lasting but less severe depression.
Learned helplessness: Feeling unable to control aspects of the future.
Bipolar disorder: A mood disorder involving both depressed and manic episodes.
Bipolar I disorder: Involves manic episodes.
Bipolar II disorder: Involves hypomanic episodes.
Mania: A state of high energy and confidence.
Schizophrenia spectrum disorders: Severe disorders involving distorted thinking.
Disorganized thinking: Disrupted thought patterns.
Disorganized speech: Incoherent or nonsensical speech.
Disorganized motor behavior: Unusual or erratic body movements.
Delusions: Beliefs that have no basis in reality.
Delusions of persecution: Belief that people are out to get you.
Delusions of grandeur: Belief that you have greater power and influence than you do.
Hallucinations: Perceptions in the absence of sensory stimulation.
Word salad: Stringing together a series of nonsense words that rhyme.
Flat affect: Essentially no emotional response at all.
Schizophrenia: A severe psychological disorder characterized by distorted thinking, hallucinations, and delusions.
Catatonia: A motor problem where people may remain motionless in strange positions for hours at a time, move jerkily and quickly for no apparent reason, or alternate between the two.
Positive symptoms: Excesses in behavior, thought, or mood such as neologisms and hallucinations.
Negative symptoms: Deficits such as flat affect or catatonic stupor.
Catatonic stupor: People who evidence waxy flexibility, that is, they allow their body to be moved into any alternative shape and will then hold that new pose.
Dopamine hypothesis: High levels of dopamine are associated with schizophrenia.
Cluster A: Suspicious or eccentric behaviors.
Paranoid: A personality disorder whereby people tend to be suspicious and distant from others.
Schizoid: People who suffer from this personality disorder tend to be suspicious and distant from others.
Schizotypal personality disorders: People who suffer from this personality disorder tend to be suspicious and distant from others.
Cluster B: Impulsive or emotional, dramatic, and erratic tendencies.
Borderline personality disorders: Can result in unstable social relationships; people who suffer from it can fear abandonment and switch back and forth between how they feel about and act toward others.
Antisocial personality disorder: A personality disorder where people have little regard for other people's feelings.
Narcissistic personality disorder: Seeing oneself as the center of the universe.
Histrionic personality disorder: Overly dramatic behavior.
Cluster C: Anxiety is the hallmark.
Avoidant personality disorder: Someone with this personality disorder is plagued by feelings of inadequacy, which can lead them to avoid social situations and be very sensitive to criticism.
Dependent personality disorder: People with this personality disorder rely too much on the attention and help of others.
Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder: People who suffer from this personality disorder may be overly concerned with certain thoughts and behaviors and may have a tendency toward perfectionism.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD): Persistent, unwanted thoughts (obsessions) cause someone to feel the need (compulsion) to engage in a particular action.
Obsessions: Persistent, unwanted thoughts.
Hoarding disorder: Is when a person has difficulty discarding or parting with possessions because of a perceived need to save them.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): Flashbacks or nightmares following a person's involvement in or observation of an extremely troubling event such as a war or natural disaster.
Flashbacks: When memories of the event cause anxiety.
Anorexia nervosa: Being at significantly low weight for one's age and size, an intense fear of fat and food, and a distorted body image.
Bulimia: Shares similar features with anorexia nervosa such as a fear of food and fat and a distorted body image, however, bulimics do not lose as much of their body weight.
Substance-related and addictive disorders: A diagnosis made when the use of such substances or behaviors, like gambling, regularly negatively affects a person's life.

Overview

Psychological disorders manifest in behavior and/or thoughts. Abnormal psychology studies common problems like depression and substance abuse, as well as rare disorders like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

Defining Psychological Disorders

Disorders are characterized by dysfunction, distress, and deviance. Insanity is a legal term differentiating those responsible for their crimes from those who are not due to a psychological disorder. Psychologists use the International Classification of Mental Disorders (ICD) and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) to diagnose patients. The DSM-5 contains the symptoms of psychological disorders.

The resources do not include much discussion of the causes (also called etiologies) or treatments of the various disorders, because adherents to each of the psychological perspectives disagree.
Psychodynamic theorists attribute disorders to unconscious conflicts caused by adverse childhood experiences (ACES). Behaviorists believe that psychological problems result from the person's history of reinforcement. Cognitive theorists locate the source of psychological disorders in maladaptive learned associations, while humanistic psychologists view the root of such disorders in a person's feelings, self-esteem, and self-concept. The sociocultural perspective holds that social ills such as racism, sexism, ageism, and poverty, and the discrimination that result from these prejudices, lie at the heart of psychological disorders. Biomedical psychologists believe that many psychological disorders are associated with genetic abnormalities that may lead to the physiological abnormalities described above. However, the differences do not have to occur at the genetic level.

The biopsychosocial view suggests problems result from biological, psychological, and social factors. The diathesis-stress model proposes that environmental stressors can trigger a biological predisposition for illness. Eclectic psychologists use ideas from different perspectives.

Categories of Disorders

The DSM-5 lists many psychological disorders.

Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Autism spectrum disorder involves deviations from typical social development, hypersensitivity to sensory stimulation, and repetitive behaviors. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) involves difficulty paying attention or sitting still. Critics suggest overdiagnosis in boys and underdiagnosis in girls.

Neurocognitive Disorders

Alzheimer's disease is a form of dementia, a deterioration of cognitive abilities. The DSM-5 includes diagnoses for major and mild forms of neurocognitive disorders.

Anxiety Disorders

Anxiety disorders share a common symptom of anxiety.

Specific phobia: Intense fear of a situation or object.
Agoraphobia: Fear of open, public spaces.
Social anxiety disorder: Fear of situations where one could embarrass oneself.
Taijin kyofusho: A Japanese social anxiety disorder involving concern that one's body is displeasing to others.
Generalized anxiety disorder: Constant, low-level anxiety.
Panic disorder: Acute episodes of intense anxiety.
Ataque de nervios: A Caribbean culture manifestation of panic attack symptoms is.

Theories About the Cause of Anxiety Disorders

Psychodynamic theorists see disorders as caused by unresolved, unconscious conflicts. Behaviorists believe anxiety disorders are learned. Cognitive theorists attribute disorders to dysfunctional ways of thinking. A person with GAD may have an unrealistically high standard for his or her own behavior.

Somatic Symptom and Related Disorders

Somatic symptom disorders occur when a person manifests a psychological problem through a physiological symptom. People who have conversion disorder report the existence of a severe physical problem such as paralysis or blindness, where no medical reason for such problems can be identified.

Theories About the Cause of Somatic Symptom Disorders

Psychodynamic theorists would assert that somatic symptom disorders are merely outward manifestations of unresolved unconscious conflicts. Behaviorists would say that people with somatic symptom disorders are being reinforced for their behavior.

Dissociative Disorders

Dissociative disorders involve a disruption in conscious processes. Dissociative amnesia and dissociative identity disorder (DID) are classified as dissociative disorders.

Theories About the Cause of Dissociative Disorders

Psychodynamic theorists believe that dissociative disorders result when an extremely traumatic event has been so thoroughly repressed that a split in consciousness results. Behaviorists posit that people who have experienced trauma simply find not thinking about it to be rewarding, thus producing amnesia or, in extreme cases, DID.

Depressive Disorders

People who are clinically depressed remain unhappy for more than two weeks in the absence of a clear reason.

Theories About the Cause of Depressive Disorders

Psychodynamic theorists may view depression as the product of anger directed inward or an overly punitive superego. Learning theorists view the mood disorder as bringing about some kind of reinforcement such as attention or sympathy. Aaron Beck, a cognitive theorist, believed that depression results from unreasonably negative ideas that people have about themselves, their world, and their futures. Another way that cognitive psychologists look at the cause of depression is by exploring the kind of attributions that people make about their experiences. Many theories about the cause of depression combine a cognitive and a behavioral component. Martin Seligman's idea of learned helplessness says that a lack of ability to control fate in the first phase of the experiment, these dogs had learned to act helpless.

A growing body of evidence suggests that a biological component to affective disorders exists. Low levels of serotonin, a neurotransmitter, have been linked with major depressive disorder.

Bipolar and Related Disorders

Unlike unipolar depression, bipolar disorder, formerly known as manic depression, usually involves both depressed and manic episodes. The depressed episodes involve all the symptoms discussed above.

Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders

Schizophrenia spectrum disorders are probably the most severe and debilitating of the psychological disorders. The fundamental symptom of schizophrenia is disordered, distorted thinking often demonstrated through:

Delusions: are beliefs that have no basis in reality.
Hallucinations: are perceptions in the absence of any sensory stimulation.
Schizophrenics often evidence some odd uses of language. They may make up their own words (neologisms) or string together a series of nonsense words that rhyme (clang associations).
Resulting in what has been described as word salad.

Theories About the Cause of Schizophrenic Disorders

One of the most popular ideas about the cause of schizophrenia is biological and is called the dopamine hypothesis. If Sally's parents demand she get perfect grades and spend her free time studying but also constantly ask her why she doesn't have more friends, Sally is experiencing a double bind. People who live in environments full of such conflicting messages may develop distorted ways of thinking due to the impossibility of rationally resolving their experiences.

Personality Disorders

Personality disorders are divided into three types or clusters.

Cluster A: is associated with suspicious or eccentric behaviors and includes paranoid, schizoid, and schizotypal personality disorders.
Cluster B: is marked by impulsive or emotional, dramatic, and erratic tendencies and includes antisocial, histrionic, narcissistic, and borderline personality disorders.
Cluster C: Anxiety is the hallmark of Cluster C, which includes avoidant, dependent, and obsessive-compulsive personality disorders.

Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders

When obsessions result in anxiety, this anxiety is reduced when the person performs the compulsive behavior. For this reason, OCD used to be classified as an anxiety disorder. However, the DSM-5 has created a separate classification for OCD and related disorders, including hoarding disorder and body dysmorphic disorder (an obsession with perceived defects related to one's appearance).

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

PTSD usually involves flashbacks or nightmares following a person's involvement in or observation of an extremely troubling event such as a war or natural disaster.

Feeding and Eating Disorders

Anorexia nervosa: is being at significantly low weight for one's age and size, an intense fear of fat and food, and a distorted body image.
Bulimia: Shares similar features with anorexia nervosa such as a fear of food and fat and a distorted body image, however, bulimics do not lose as much of their body weight.
Binge-eating disorder: involves eating very large quantities of food in a short time while experiencing feelings of loss of control.

Substance-Related and Addictive Disorders

A category of psychological disorders involving the use of substances such as alcohol and drugs.

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Diagnostic Labels

Diagnostic labels are not always correct and tend to outlast their usefulness.

Treatment of Psychological Disorders

Learning Objectives:

Types of therapy
Kinds of therapists

Key Terms:

Patients: Individuals receiving treatment, often in a biomedical context.
Clients: Individuals receiving therapy, often in a humanistic context.
Psychodynamic therapy: Therapy based on psychoanalytic principles.
Hypnosis: An altered state of consciousness.
Free associate: Saying whatever comes to mind without thinking.
Dream interpretation: Analyzing dreams to reveal unconscious thoughts.
Person-centered therapy: A humanistic therapy emphasizing unconditional positive regard.
Unconditional positive regard: Acceptance and support regardless of actions.
Active listening: Reflecting feelings to clarify them for the client.
Applied behavior analysis (ABA): Using reinforcement to teach successful behaviors.
Counterconditioning: Replacing an unpleasant conditioned response with a pleasant one.
Systematic desensitization: Replacing anxiety with relaxation through a fear hierarchy.
Anxiety or fear hierarchy: A rank-ordered list of what the client fears, starting with the least frightening and ending with the most frightening.
Exposure therapies: Exposing the client to feared stimuli.
Aversive therapy: Pairing an unwanted habit with an unpleasant stimulus.
Token economy: Rewarding desired behaviors with tokens.
Cognitive restructuring: Challenging maladaptive thinking patterns.
Maladaptive thinking: Unhealthy thought patterns.
Cognitive triad: Beliefs about oneself, the world, and the future.
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT): Combining cognitive and behavioral techniques.
Rational emotive behavior therapy: Challenging dysfunctional thoughts and behaviors.
Psychoactive medications: Drugs that affect mental processes.
Psychotropic medications: Drugs used to treat mental disorders.
Antipsychotic medications: Drugs used to treat schizophrenia.
Tardive dyskinesia: Parkinsonian-like chronic muscle tremors.
Antidepressants: Drugs used to treat depression.
Lithium: Used to treat bipolar disorder.
Antianxiety drugs: Drugs used to treat anxiety.
Biofeedback: Learning to control physiological responses.
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS): Using magnets to alter brain activity.
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT): Inducing seizures to treat depression.
Psychosurgery: Destroying part of the brain to alter behavior.
Prefrontal lobotomy: Cutting connections to the frontal lobe.
Respecting people's rights and dignity: An ethical standard for psychologists.
Fidelity: Trust and responsibility.
Cultural humility: Recognizing and respecting cultural differences.
Nonmaleficence: "Do no harm."
Therapeutic alliance: The relationship between therapist and client.
Evidence-based interventions: Treatments supported by research.

Overview

Methods of treatment share a common goal: to alter the client's behavior, thoughts, and/or feelings.

Types of Therapy

Psychodynamic, humanistic, behavioral, and cognitive psychologists believe in the power of psychotherapy. Biomedical psychologists assert that such issues require somatic treatments such as drugs.

Psychodynamic Therapy

Psychodynamic therapy grew out of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic approach. If a patient is undergoing traditional psychoanalysis, they will usually lie on a couch while the therapist sits in a chair out of the patient's line of vision.

Psychodynamic clinicians believe that other methods of therapy may succeed in ridding a client of a particular symptom but do not address the true problem. As a result, psychoanalysts assert that patients will suffer from symptom substitution. Symptom substitution is when, after a person has been successfully treated for one psychological disorder, that person begins to experience a new psychological problem.

Techniques

To delve into the unconscious minds of his patients, Freud developed several techniques including hypnosis, free association, and dream analysis. He also looked into resistance. Resistance is a particularly strongly voiced disagreement to a therapist's suggestion that is often viewed as an indication that the analyst is closing in on the source of the problem.

One final aspect of psychodynamic treatment involves transference. Transference is when, during therapy, patients begin to have strong feelings toward their therapists.

Humanistic Therapies

Humanistic therapies focus on helping people to understand and accept themselves and strive to self-actualize. Humanistic psychologists view it as a powerful motivational goal. Humanistic therapists operate from the belief that people are innately good and possess free will. They assert that if people are supported and helped to recognize their goals, they will move toward self-fulfillment.

Humanistic therapists believe that people have free. This therapeutic method hinges on the therapist providing the client with what Rogers termed unconditional positive regard.

Often, client-centered therapists say very little. They encourage the clients to talk a lot about how they feel and sometimes mirror back those feelings to help clarify the feelings for the client. ("So, what I'm hearing you say is….") This technique is known as active listening.

Behavioral Therapies

One behavioral approach, most used to help people with developmental disorders like autism spectrum disorder, is known as applied behavior analysis (ABA). Therapists trained in ABA set up systems of reinforcement to help teach their clients how to be successful in the world. Behavioral therapies have also been shown to be effective in treating anxiety disorders.

Counterconditioning

One technique is counterconditioning, a kind of classical conditioning in which an unpleasant conditioned response is replaced with a pleasant one.

Systematic Desensitization

One behaviorist method of treatment involving counterconditioning has had considerable success in helping people with anxiety disorders, especially phobias. It was developed by Joseph Wolpe and is called systematic desensitization. This process involves teaching the client to replace the feelings of anxiety with relaxation. In the process of in vivo desensitization, the client confronts the actual feared objects or situations, while in covert desensitization, the client imagines the fear-inducing stimuli.

Additional Techniques

Another method of treating anxiety disorders that uses classical conditioning techniques is called flooding. Another way that classical conditioning techniques can be used to treat people is called aversive therapy. Operant conditioning can also be used as a method of treatment. This process involves using the principles developed by B. F. Skinner, such as reinforcement and punishment, to modify a person's behavior.

Cognitive Therapies

The goal of cognitive therapy is often referred to as cognitive restructuring, which involves challenging people's patterns of maladaptive thinking. Aaron Beck created cognitive therapy; a process most often employed in the treatment of depression.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapies

One popular group of therapies combines the ideas and techniques of both cognitive and behavioral psychologists. This approach to therapy is known as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). An example of a specific type of CBT is rational emotive behavior therapy (also known as REBT and sometimes referred to as RET).

Group Therapy

Therapists running groups can have any of the orientations described above or can be eclectic, as described earlier. One common use of group therapy is in treating families. This form of treatment is known as family therapy.

Somatic Therapies

Psychologists with a biomedical (biological) orientation, as mentioned earlier, see the cause of psychological disorders in organic causes. Therefore, these psychologists advocate the use of somatic therapies, therapies that produce bodily changes. The most common type of somatic therapy is drug therapy or psychopharmacology, also known as chemotherapy. Schizophrenia is generally treated with antipsychotic medications such as Thorazine or Haldol.

Additional Techniques

Biofeedback is a type of therapy most commonly used in the treatment of anxiety and depression. Another approach targeted at changing brain activity is electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). In bilateral ECT, electric current is passed through both hemispheres of the brain. Unilateral ECT involves running current through only one hemisphere. Bilateral ECT, although generally more effective, also has more significant negative side effects, most notably loss of memory. Usually, following the seizure, patients briefly lose consciousness.

The most intrusive and rarest form of somatic therapy is psychosurgery. Psychosurgery involves the purposeful destruction of part of the brain to alter a person's behavior. An early, and unfortunately widespread, form of psychosurgery was the prefrontal lobotomy.

Eclectic Therapies

Research indicates that cognitive behavioral therapies can be particularly effective for some anxiety and some mood disorders. Somatic cognitive therapy is another very common combination eclectic therapy.

Kinds of Therapists

In addition to the different orientations discussed above, therapists have various levels and kinds of training.

Psychiatrists are medical doctors and are therefore the only therapists permitted to prescribe medication in most U.S. states. Not surprisingly, because of their backgrounds, psychiatrists often favor a biomedical model of mental illness and are often less extensively trained in psychotherapy.
Clinical psychologists earn doctoral degrees (PhDs) that require four or more years of study. Part of their training involves an internship during which they are overseen by a more experienced professional.