Download Mods 40 – 42 Therapy Unit Essay Question Options

Mods 40 – 42 Therapy Unit Essay Question Options
1. Briefly describe each of the disorders listed below. For each
disorder, include a general description of the disorder, a review of
symptomology, the mode of treatment currently viewed as most
effective, and the rationale for use of this treatment.
A. Anxiety disorder – Persistent anxiety or abnormal behaviors to
lower anxiety. Symptoms include excessive tension and worry,
unrealistic view on problems, intense feelings of dread, chest pain,
chocking, difficulty breathing, phobias, and OCD. Treatments include
anti-anxiety drugs and psychotherapy and behavioral therapy.
B. Bipolar disorder – When a person goes between extreme
depression and mania. Symptoms include irritability, loss of interest,
depression, and hyperactivity. Treatments include hospitalization
(necessary only through doctor recommendation), medications
(Lithium, anti-depressants, anti-psychotics), and therapy.
C. Schizophrenia – A group of brain disorders in which people
interpret reality abnormally. It may result in hallucinations, delusions,
and disordered thinking and behavior. Symptoms include irritable or
tense feeling, trouble concentrating, trouble sleeping, bizarre
behaviors, hallucinations, isolation, reduced emotion, problems paying
attention, delusions, and loose associations. Treatments mostly involve
medication like Chlorpromazine, Haloperidol, and Clozapine.
2. Briefly discuss the cause(s) and treatment(s) of depression from
the perspective of each of the following psychological approaches.
A. Psychodynamic/psychoanalytical
Cause – Depression would be caused by an experience in
someone’s childhood that was repressed in the unconscious . This
would cause them to be depressed.
Treatment – Therapy. The therapist would help the person gain
insight into unconscious roots of the problems to discover why they
feel the way they do.
B. Biological/medical
Cause – Families that have a history of depression will put other
family members at a higher risk of becoming depressed.
Norepinephrine and serotonin are scarce in depressed people’s
brains. The left frontal lobe is inactive in depressed people. Frontal
lobes are 7% smaller.
Treatment – Drugs to help boost or increase chemical output in your
brain, or electroconvulsive therapy.
C. Cognitive
Cause – Self-defeating beliefs feed the vicious cycle of depression.
They may have learned helplessness from experiencing painful
events. Negative thoughts feed negative moods, or negative moods
could feed negative thoughts.
Treatment – Cognitive therapies work to reverse the client’s
catastrophic beliefs about themselves, situations and futures. They
attempt to convince depressed people to have positive thoughts
and help them discover their rationalities.
3. Describe the therapeutic procedure called systematic
desensitization. Select a specific disorder for which this therapy is
effective and explain how the basic phenomena listed below play a
part in successful treatment.
Systematic desensitization – type of counter conditioning that
associates a pleasant, relaxed state with gradually increasing
anxiety-triggering stimuli
A. Anxiety hierarchy – a person would make a list ranging from not
as frightening situations and anxieties to situations producing
extreme anxiety
B. Relaxation – learning methods of relaxation with therapists help
C. Generalization – after someone gets through least frightening
stimuli while relaxed, they move up until they can get past the
worst without coming out of a relaxed state. Once this is done they
begin to generalize all phobias with relaxation
D. Extinction – when the fear is gone during the relaxation part the
phobia becomes extinct
4. A. Discuss the cause of anxiety from each of the following
perspectives.
* Behavioral: A person may be causing themselves anxiety by
making poor choices and putting themselves in stressful situations.
It also might depend on how they react to a stressful situation.
* Psychodynamic/psychoanalytical: Traumatic or disturbing events
from a person’s past will cause them to experience anxiety because
they generalize their current situations with how they felt in the
past.
* Biological/medical: The anxiety might be inherited and caused by
an experience that leads to a neurochemical imbalance.
* Cognitive: Anxiety is caused by how the person interprets
situations that may cause them stress.
B. Discuss a specific treatment technique for reducing anxiety used
by professionals representing each of the four perspectives.
* Behavioral: Systematic desensitization: the therapist will create a
hierarchy for the client’s anxieties and will teach the client
relaxation techniques. They will then describe the situations that
cause the client anxiety, while having the client try to relax. If the
client feels stressed at any point, the therapist will wait until they
are relaxed to continue the treatment.
* Psychodynamic/psychoanalytical: The psychodynamic and
psychoanalytic therapist will have the client vent about what is
causing them anxiety. The therapist would listen to what the client
says and eventually help interpret for the client what unconscious
motivations are causing them anxiety.
* Biological/medical: Anxiety can be treated by different
medications, such as Xanax, or Valium. Psychopharmacological
treatments will alter neural chemical systems of the patient.
* Cognitive: The therapist will try to convince the client that
whatever is causing the anxiety is not logical or should not be
causing them anxiety.