AP Psych: Therapeutic Modalities

Psychodynamic→Sigmund Freud

  • Psychoanalysis

  • Aim:

    • Insight of issue comes from past stored in unconsciousness

  • Role of Therapist

    • Intensive one-on-one therapy

    • Bring childhood’s repressed impulses and conflicts into conscious awareness where patients can deal with them

  • Free Association

    • You say anything that comes to mind, reveals hidden unconscious

  • Resistance

    • During free association, the patient edits their thoughts to resist theories and emotions

  • Transference

    • Patient projects unresolved issues on therapist

    • Opens up and expresses private thoughts

Humanistic→ Carl Rogers

  • Client/Person Centered Therapy

  • Aim:

    • Emphasize a person’s ability to heal themselves with some assistance

    • Not patients! Get client to accept themselves

  • Role of Therapist

    • Non Directive, person decides where conversation is going

  • Empathy

    • Showing client you see, feel, and understand problems

  • Active Listening

    • Sounding Board

    • Restating

Cognitive Therapy→Albert Ellis, Aaron Beck

  • Aim:

    • Directive

    • Identification and elimination of core irrational beliefs

    • Unlike/false beliefs we have

  • Catastrophizing

    • Interpreting current events as signs of the worst possible outcome

Behavior Therapies

  • Classical Conditioning/Counter Conditioning→Mary Cover Jones

  • System Desensitization→Joseph Wolpe

    • Get over fear 1 step at a time

    • 1. Relaxation

      • The client is trained in deep relaxation (CR)

      • 0/100, no fear

    • 2. Hierarchy of Fears

      • Construct a list of anxiety-eliciting stimuli

      • Least to most distressing

    • 3. Graduated steps

      • Paires steps with relaxation until eventually the most feared stimuli is tolerated calmly

  • Flooding

    • Instant face fear

    • Fully exposed to anxiety producing stimulus in a harmless and controlled situation

  • VR Therapy

    • visual immersion devices to artificially create environments

  • Aversion Therapy

    • Replace and pair a conditioned habitual unwanted response (CR) to a harmful (aversive) stimulus

  • Operant Condition

    • Token Economy

      • reinforces desired behavior by giving tokens which can be exchanged for privileges