Download Psychology Chapter 19: Group Interaction

A wide range of treatments to help troubled individuals overcome their
problems
1. Involves 3 things
a. Verbal interaction between therapist and client
b. Development of a supportive and trusting relationship
c. Analysis by the therapist of the client’s problems
2. Nature of Psychotherapy
a. “Healing of the Soul”
i. Usually thought of a moral or religious problem
ii. Inhabited by demons
iii. Treatments included exorcisms
a. Religious ceremonies or physical punishment
iv. Mental illness not a good term because it leaves the person feeling
passive and helpless
b. Functions of Psychotherapy
i. Help people realize that they are responsible for their own problems
ii. Only they can solve those problems
iii. Major task of psychotherapist to help patient:
a. Examine their way of living
b. Understand how that way causes problems
c. Start living in a new beneficial way
c. Main Kinds of Therapy
i. Each based on a theory of how human personality works
ii. Each is carried out in a different style
iii. Many stick to one single approach, while others are eclectic
d. Goals of Therapy
i. Primary Goal - Strengthen a person’s control over their life
ii. One of the biggest factors in treatment is a patient’s hope and belief that
they will get better – placebo effect
3. Who are Therapists
i. Chart 17.3
ii. What Makes a Good Therapist
a. More skillful than friends in encouraging a person to examine uncomfortable
feelings and problems
b. 3 Characteristics found in effective therapists
a) Be psychologically healthy
b) Have empathy – capacity for warmth and understanding
c) Experienced in dealing with people and understanding their
complexities
4. Group Therapies
i. Patient is in the company of others not alone
ii. Chance to see others struggling with similar problems
iii. Sees others recovering and gets hope from that
iv. Family Therapy
a. Focus is on the interactions among family members
b. Untangles the twisted webs of relationships in the families
c. Psychologist is an objective viewpoint and can suggest ways of improving
communications
v. Self-Help Groups
a. Voluntary groups of people that share similar problems
b. Discuss difficulties and provide one another with support and possible
solutions
c. Alcoholism, overeating, drug addiction, child abuse, cancer survivors, etc.
d. Most famous is AA
5. Does Psychotherapy Work?
i. Studies clash yes and no
ii. Therapy can improve the quality of life for patients and is better than no
treatment at all
Section 1 Review
1. What is Psychoanalysis
i. Based on the theories of Sigmund Freud
ii. Psychoanalysis – therapy aimed at making patients aware of their unconscious
motives so that they can gain control over their behavior
iii. Psychological disturbances are caused by hidden conflicts
iv. Make patient aware of unconscious impulses, desires and fears that cause
anxiety
v. Insight – the apparent sudden solution to a problem, first step to gaining control
of their behavior and problems
vi. Free Association
i. Psychoanalysis is a slow procedure
ii. Years of 50 minute sessions, several times a week
a. Average of 600 sessions and years of meeting
iii. Begins with the analyst having the patient relax and talk about everything
that comes to mind – Free Association
a. Everything should be expressed, nothing inconsequential, nothing to
unimportant or embarrassing
b. Describe dreams, private thoughts, long-forgotten experiences
a. Analyst says nothing, most of the work is done by the patient
c. Any behavior that impedes the course of therapy (painful feelings or not
examining long-standing behavior patterns) is called resistance
vii. Dream Analysis
a. Freud also believed that dreams expressed unconscious thoughts and
feelings
b. Dream Analysis – analyst interprets the dreams of the patient to find the
unconscious thoughts and feelings
c. Freud believed that dreams contained two types of content
a) Manifest content
i. What you remember about your dream
b) Latent Content
i. Refers to the hidden meanings represented symbolically in the
dream that the analyst interprets from the manifest content
viii. Transference – the process experienced by the patient of feeling towards the
analyst the way they feel toward some other important figure in their life
a. Can be good or bad
b. Analyst can’t let this happen
2. Humanistic Therapy
i.
Focuses on the value, dignity and worth of each person. It holds that healthy living is the
result of realizing one’s full potential
ii. Can be reached through personal responsibility, freedom of choice and authentic
relationships
a. Client-Centered Therapy
i.
Based on theories of Carl Rogers
ii. Uses “client” to imply an equal relationship (returns: positive regard, empathy and
genuineness)
iii. Assumes that people are good and that they are capable of handling their own lives
iv. One goal: to help a person recognize their own strength and confidence, this way they will
learn to be true to their standards and ideas about how to live effectively
v. Techniques of Client-Centered Therapy
a) Topics are entirely up to the patient – nondirective therapy
b) Therapist listens and encourages but avoids giving opinions
c) Therapist echoes back what they hear – active listening
d) Client and therapist work together to see how the client feels about themselves, their
life and others.
e) Session held in an Unconditional positive regard – therapists consistent expression
of acceptance of the client no matter what the client says or does
i.
No opinions are made or spoken
ii. All speech and actions are accepted
iii. No emotion showed
Section 2 Review
Behavior Modification – a systematic method of changing the way a person acts
and feels
1. Cognitive Therapy
a. Focuses on changing the way people think
b. To improve our lives, we must work to change our pattern of thinking
c. Disconfirmation – clients may be confronted with evidence that directly contradicts their
existing beliefs
d. Reconceptualization – clients work toward an alternative belief system to explain their
experiences or current observations
e. Insight – clients work toward understanding and deriving new or revised beliefs
f. Rational-Emotive Therapy – form of help aimed at changing unrealistic assumptions about
oneself and other people
i. Goal is to correct false and self-defeating beliefs
a) Use of role-playing, modeling, humor, persuasion or a homework type approach
b) See Figure 17.8
g. Beck’s Cognitive Therapy – Focuses on illogical thought processes
i. Maladaptive Thought Patterns – Overgeneralization, Polarized Thinking and
Selective Attention
ii. See Figure 17.9
2. Behavior Therapies – changing undesirable behavior through conditioning techniques
i. Counterconditioning – pairs the stimulus that triggers an unwanted behavior (or fear)
with a new, more desirable behavior
a. Systematic Desensitization – technique used to overcome irrational fears and
anxieties that patient has learned
a) Encourages people to imagine a feared situation while relaxing thus
extinguishing the fear response.
b. Flooding – therapist exposes the client to a feared object or situation
c. Modeling – therapist models/demonstrates behavior
d. Aversive Conditioning – links an unpleasant state with an unwanted behavior in an
attempt to eliminate that behavior
ii. Operant Conditioning
a. Based on the assumption that behavior that is reinforced tends to be repeated,
whereas behavior that isn’t reinforced tends to be extinguished
b. Contingency Management – therapist and patient decide what old, undesirable
behavior needs to be eliminated and which new, desirable behavior needs to appear.
a) Old behavior is unrewarded and desired behavior is positively reinforced
b) If you do X, I will give you Y
c. Token Economies – desirable behavior is reinforced with valueless objects or
points, which can be accumulated and exchanged for various rewards
3. Cognitive-Behavior Therapy – based upon a combination of substituting healthy
thoughts for negative thoughts and beliefs and changing disruptive behaviors in
favor of healthy behaviors
Section 3 Review
Watch “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and complete Worksheet
1. Biological Therapy
i.
Assumes that there is an underlying physiological reason for disturbed behavior,
faulty thinking and inappropriate emotions
ii. Medication, shock therapy and surgery are examples
iii. Psychologists may decide that a biological approach is necessary but a
physician or psychiatrist administer them
a. Drug Therapy – biological therapy that uses medications
i. Usually only treats the symptoms but doesn’t cure the cause
ii. Anti-Psychotic Drugs – medication to reduce agitation, delusions and
hallucinations by blocking the activity of dopamine in the brain, tranquilizers
a) Long time use for dangerous and overactive schizophrenics was
straightjacket, wet-sheet wrapping or isolation
b) Calmed by ECT or lobotomy
c) Now (with meds) become less withdrawn, confused and agitated, fewer
auditory hallucinations, less irritable and hostile
d) Theory
a) When a person’s dopamine neurotransmitter becomes overactive, the
person develops schizophrenia
e) Side effects
a) Muscular rigidity, impaired coordination and tremors
f) Best Known
a) `Thorazine, Haldol, Closaril
iii. Anti-Depressant Drugs – medication used to treat major depression by
increasing the amount of one or both of the neurotransmitters
noradrenaline and serotonin
a) Side effects
i. Dizziness, fatigue, forgetfulness, weight gain
b) Best Known
i. Nadril, Prozac
iv. Lithium Carbonate – Chemical used to counteract mood swings of bipolar
disorder (natural compound)
v. Anti-Anxiety Drugs – Medication that relieves anxiety and panic disorders
by depressing the activity of the central nervous system
a) Best used for acute not chronic anxiety
b) Side effects
i. Short term – drowsiness
ii. Long term – dependence and with alcohol death results
c) Best Known
i. Xanax, Librium, Valium
2. Electroconvulsive Therapy – electrical shocks sent through the brain to try to
reduce symptoms of mental disturbance
i. No one understands how it works, it induces a convulsion like an epileptic
seizure that may last up to a minute
ii. Used lots in the past
iii. Very little pain today due to sedatives and muscle relaxants
iv. Drastic treatment, used with great caution today
v. Current was run through both hemispheres of the brain, now only through
the right hemisphere
vi. Side effects
a. Extensive amnesia
b. Language and verbal abilities
vii. Highly effective for depression
3. Insulin Shock Therapy– a form of psychiatric treatment in which patients were
repeatedly injected with large doses of insulin in order to produce daily comas
over several weeks.
4. Psychosurgery – medical operation that destroys part of the brain to make the
patient calmer and freer of symptoms
i. Prefrontal Lobotomy – section of the frontal lobe of the brain is destroyed
Contains the nerve connections that control emotions
Watch PBS Video on Dr. Walter Freeman
“Freeman developed the ice pick lobotomy in 1947. In the procedure, he put the
sharp point of the pick in the tear duct. Then, with a light tap of a hammer,
plunged it two inches inside, pulled it 30 degrees backward, and then moved it up
and down in a 20 degree arc, in order to cut the nerves at the base of the frontal
lobes. The procedure took only a few minutes. Within several years, the procedure
had been preformed on over 20,000 individuals.”
Complete Section 4 Review
Complete Chapter 17 Study Guide
Chapter 17 Test