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Mental Health Practitioners
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A psychiatrist is a medical doctor (M.D.) and the only mental health professional who
can prescribe medication (in most regions) or perform surgery. Psychiatrists generally
take a biological approach to treating major disorders such as schizophrenia and
depression. Their medical training includes an approved residency in a psychiatric section
of a hospital. Psychiatrists are not required to take courses dealing with insight,
psychoanalytic, behavioral, cognitive, or humanistic therapeutic approaches.
Clinical psychologists must earn a doctoral degree (Ph.D. or a Psy.D.), which includes a
supervised internship, then they must pass a licensing exam. Their training does
emphasize different therapeutic approaches. Both psychiatrists and clinical psychologists
see patients with similar disorders. Since many problems respond best to a combination
of medication and supportive psychotherapy, clinical psychologists often work with
psychiatrists.
Counseling psychologists typically have one of a number of different advanced degrees
(Ph.D., Ed.D., Psy.D., or M.A. in counseling) and tend to deal with less severe mental
health problems in college settings, or in marital and family therapy practices. In the
latter, they try not to assign blame but provide a supportive ear to all parties and help
clarify the feelings of each individual to the others.
Psychoanalysts may or may not be psychiatrists, but all follow the teaching of Freud and
practice psychoanalysis or other psychodynamic therapies. They receive extensive
training and self-analysis with a more experienced psychoanalyst before they begin their
treatment of patients.
Clinical or psychiatric social workers typically have earned a Master's degree in social
work
(M.S.W.), which includes a supervised internship, and have taken a certification exam. Other
mental health care professionals include psychiatric nurse practitioners and pastoral counselors,
who combine spiritual guidance with practical counseling.
While many medical insurance plans will pay for the services of psychiatrists, clinical
psychologists, counseling psychologists, and clinical social workers, they will not pay for the
services of unlicensed therapists. In most places, anyone can call himself/herself a therapist
without having any training.
Brief History of Therapy
Archeological evidence and historical documents suggest that early humans believed people with
mental health problems were possessed by evil spirits. Trephining, drilling holes in skulls, also
indicates that early practitioners attempted to release these spirits.
Over 2,000 years ago, Greek physician Hippocrates proposed that psychological problems have
physical causes for which he prescribed rest, controlled diets, and abstinence from sex and
alcohol. More than 1,500 years ago, Greek physician Galen believed that medicine was needed
to treat abnormal behavior, which he thought was a result of an imbalance in the four bodily
humors, similar to today's biomedical approach. Unfortunately, during the Medieval period, most
societies returned to the belief that demons or Satan possessed people suffering from mental
problems. Victims were punished with exorcisms or tested by drowning and burning.
The Enlightenment brought reformers: in the 18th century, Philippe Pinel of France and, in the
19th century, Dorthea Dix of the United States were champions of humane treatment for the
mentally ill. Instead of treating those with mental health problems as sinners or criminals, they
created separate institutions for them, and pioneered more individualized and kinder treatment
strategies.
Deinstitutionalization
Serious overcrowding of most mental institutions became a problem by the 1950s. As a result,
the needs of many patients were neglected. When better psychotropic drugs were created, a
movement, deinstitutionalization, began to remove patients who were not considered a threat to
themselves or the community from mental hospitals. Similar to the more humane goals of Pinel
and Dix, the intent was that patients would improve more rapidly in familiar community settings.
In the 1960s, Congress passed aid bills to establish community mental health facilities in
neighborhoods across the United States.
An unintended problem of deinstitutionalization is today's homeless population. A substantial
proportion of this group is thought to be made up of schizophrenic patients, mostly off their
medications and in serious need of care. Families and communities have failed to meet the needs
of these people.
Treatment Approaches
No one approach for treating people with psychopathologies has been shown to be ideal.
Multiple approaches can often be more helpful than using one specific approach. For example, a
depressed patient might benefit from cognitive therapy, social skills training, and antidepressant
drugs. Research is being conducted to determine the most effective (efficacious) treatments for
clients with different disorders. One method for evaluating outcome research is meta-analysis.
Meta-analysis, the systematic statistical method for synthesizing the results of numerous
research studies dealing with the same variables, indicates that clients who receive
psychotherapy are better off than most of those who receive no treatment. Treatments that appear
more effective than others for particular disorders are noted in the following sections.
Insight Therapies
Insight therapies include psychoanalysis, psychodynamic therapy, interpersonal psychotherapy;
humanistic client-centered; and Gestalt psychotherapy. They all agree that their goal is to help
clients develop insight about the cause of their problems, and that insight will lead to behavior
change; problems will decrease as self-awareness increases.
Psychoanalysis
Sigmund Freud believed that abnormal behavior was the result of unconscious conflicts from
early childhood trauma experienced during the psychosexual stages of development. He thought
that the way to relieve the anxieties is to resolve the unconscious conflicts, which are covered by
layers of experience. Psychoanalysis involves going back to discover the roots of problems, then
changing one's misunderstandings and emotions after identifying the problem. His treatment plan
to bring the conflict into the conscious mind, enabling the client to gain insight and achieve
personality change, includes the techniques of free association and dream interpretation.
In traditional psychoanalysis, the client participates in several sessions every week for 2 or 3
years, during which the therapist sits behind the patient and asks him/her to say whatever comes
to mind, called free association. If clients do not censor what they say, key thoughts will make
unconscious conflicts accessible. Since threatening experiences and feelings can be revealed
when controls of the ego and superego are relaxed during sleep, the analyst may ask the client to
recall his/her dreams. The recalled dream—the surface meaning—is called the manifest content.
The therapist works with the client to find the hidden, underlying meaning (the latent content),
by analyzing symbols within the dream. Hypnosis and Freudian slips, Freud's "faulty actions,"
for which his editor/translator adopted the term parapraxes, may also reveal hidden conflicts.
Resistance—blocking of anxiety-provoking feelings and experiences, evidenced by behavior
such as talking about trivial issues or coming late for sessions—is a sign that the client has
reached an important issue that needs to be discovered. Although the analyst's behavior is
neutral, the client may respond to the analyst as though he/she is a significant person in the
client's emotional life. Known as transference, this behavior can allow the client to replay
previous experiences and reactions, enabling him/her to gain insight about current feelings and
behaviors.
Catharsis, the release of emotional tension after remembering or reliving an emotionally
charged experience from the past, may ultimately result in relief of anxiety. Traditional
psychoanalysis requires too much time and is too expensive for the vast majority of people
seeking help.
Psychodynamic and Interpersonal Psychotherapy
Psychoanalytic theory influences modern psychodynamic psychotherapy, which is typically
shorter in duration, less frequent, and involves the client sitting up and talking to the therapist.
The more active therapist is likely to point out and interpret relevant associations and help the
client uncover unresolved conflict more directly to gain insight into the problem and work
through feelings. Although psychodynamic therapists think that anxieties are rooted in past
experiences, they do not necessarily assume the problems arose in infancy and early childhood.
Even shorter interpersonal psychotherapy aims to enable people to gain insight into the causes of
their problems, but it focuses on current relations to relieve present symptoms.
Humanistic Therapies
Humanistic therapies include client-centered or person-centered therapies, and Gestalt therapy.
Humanists think that problems arise because the client's inherent goodness and potential to grow
emotionally have been stifled by external psychosocial constraints. The goal of client-centered
therapy is to provide an atmosphere of acceptance (unconditional positive regard),
understanding (empathy), and sharing that permits the client's inner strength and qualities to
surface so that personal growth can occur and problems can be eliminated, ultimately resulting in
self-actualization. According to humanist Carl Rogers, the greater the difference between the
ideal self and the real self, the greater the problems of the client. His emphasis on developing a
more positive self-concept through unconditional positive regard, active listening, and
showing both sensitivity and genuineness is a central focus of nondirective, Rogerian
psychotherapy. Nondirective therapy encourages the client to take the lead in determining the
direction of therapy. Rogers's technique of active listening involves echoing, restating, and
seeking clarification of what the client says and does, and acknowledging feelings.
Influenced by Gestalt psychology, which emphasized that people organize their view of the
world to make meaning, psychoanalyst Fritz Perls said that people create their own reality and
continue to grow psychologically only as long as they perceive, stay aware of, and act on their
true feelings. He developed Gestalt therapy. The therapist's goal is to push clients to decide
whether they will allow past conflicts to control their future or whether they will choose right
now to take control of their own destiny. In contrast to clientcentered therapy, Gestalt therapists
are directive in questioning and challenge clients to help them become aware of their feelings
and problems, and to discard feelings and values that are not their own. Similar to
psychoanalysts, Gestalt therapists use dream interpretation to help the client gain a better
understanding of the whole self. Through role playing, the therapist gets the client to express
his/her true feelings. Like other humanistic therapies, the emphasis is on present behavior,
feelings, and thoughts to get the client aware of how these factors interact to affect his/her whole
being.
Insight therapies have been demonstrated to be effective for treating eating disorders, depression,
and marital discord.
Behavioral Approaches
B. F. Skinner and other behaviorists discount the insight therapies. To Skinner, abnormal
behavior is a result of maladaptive behavior learned through faulty rewards and punishment. The
goal of behavior therapy is to extinguish unwanted behavior and replace it with more adaptive
behavior. Therapies are based on the learning principles of classical conditioning, operant
conditioning, and observational or social learning theory.
Classical Conditioning Therapies
After Watson conditioned Baby Albert to fear a rat, he planned to remove the fear but Albert was
taken away. Soon thereafter, Mary Cover Jones worked with a young child who feared white
rabbits, rats, and similar stimuli. Over several months, she gradually introduced a rabbit closer
and closer to the child while he ate and played. The boy's fear was gradually eliminated. Joseph
Wolpe dubbed her "the mother of behavior therapy."
Classical conditioning therapies involving reconditioning include the counterconditioning
techniques of systematic desensitization, flooding, and aversive conditioning.
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Originally called reciprocal inhibition, systematic desensitization is a behavior therapy
founded on the idea that an anxiety response is inhibited by an incompatible relaxation
response. Joseph Wolpe explained systematic desensitization as reconditioning so that the
crucial conditioned stimulus elicits the new conditioned response. The procedure has
three steps. First, the client is taught progressive relaxation. Next, the therapist and client
create an anxiety hierarchy of all associated fears from the least-feared to the mostfeared stimulus. For example, for school phobia, they may list the following situations:
thinking about going to school, seeing a picture of the school, getting on the school bus,
walking toward the school, opening the school door, and finally sitting in the classroom.
Third, the therapist has the student imagine each of the fearful associations beginning
with the least feared stimulus, the mere thought about going to school. After the student
can relax with this fear, the process is repeated, finally ascending to the most
fearprovoking stimulus of actually sitting in the classroom. When the student can sit in
the classroom and be completely relaxed, the relaxation response is effective for
inhibiting the fear response. Systematic desensitization is typically accomplished within
10 sessions.
Flooding is an exposure technique, another classical conditioning treatment for phobias
and other anxiety disorders, that extinguishes the conditioned response. As a result of the
client directly confronting the anxiety-provoking stimulus, extinction is achieved; the
feared stimulus (the conditioned stimulus) is repeatedly presented without the reason for
being afraid (the unconditioned stimulus). For example, if someone afraid of dogs is
repeatedly exposed to friendly dogs that do not bite, the fear associated with the dogs will
eventually be extinguished.
Yet another form of behavior therapy based on the principles of classical conditioning,
aversive conditioning, trains the client to associate physical or psychological discomfort
with behaviors, thoughts, or situations he/she wants to stop or avoid. One example of
aversive conditioning uses a drug called Antabuse (US) to discourage the use of alcohol.
By itself, the drug has no chemical effect, but when paired with alcohol (CS), the
combination causes extreme nausea (CR). Similar to taste aversions discussed in Chapter
10, after very few pairings of Antabuse and alcohol, the client learns to avoid alcohol.
Without an occasional pairing of the Antabuse with the alcohol again, this new response
can easily be extinguished.
Operant Conditioning Therapies
Operant conditioning therapies include contingency management techniques of behavior
modification and token economies designed to change behavior by modifying its consequences.
In both, rewards are used to reinforce target behaviors.
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In behavior modification, the client selects a goal and, with each step toward it, receives
a small reward until the intended goal is finally achieved. Weight Watchers and other
weight-reducing programs use this method to keep clients motivated.
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In token economies, positive behaviors are rewarded with secondary reinforcers
(tokens, points, etc.), which can eventually be exchanged for extrinsic rewards, such as
food. Token economies are often used in institutions to encourage socially acceptable
behaviors and to discourage socially unacceptable ones.
Other Behavior Therapies
Social skills training is a behavior therapy, based on operant conditioning and Albert Bandura's
social learning theory, to improve interpersonal skills by using modeling, behavioral rehearsal,
and shaping. With modeling, the client is encouraged to observe socially skilled people in order
to learn appropriate behaviors. In behavioral rehearsal, the client practices the appropriate social
behaviors through role-playing in structured situations. The therapist helps the client by
providing positive reinforcement and corrective feedback. Shaping involves reinforcement of
more and more complex social situations. Through social skills training, people with social
phobias learn to make friends or date, and former mental patients learn to deal normally with
people outside of the hospital. Biofeedback training is a widely used behavioral therapy that
involves giving the individual immediate information about the degree to which he/she is able to
change anxiety-related responses such as heart rate, muscle tension, and skin temperature to
facilitate improved control of the physiological process and, therefore, lessen physiological
arousal.
Behavior therapies have been found effective for treating anxiety disorders (generalized anxiety
disorder, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder), alcohol
and drug addictions, bed-wetting, sexual dysfunctions, and autism.
Psychoanalysts discount the quick cure offered by behaviorists. Since behaviorists are
unconcerned with the cause of anxiety, analysts believe that it will resurface in a new form. Until
the unconscious conflict is made conscious, the behaviorist is only "curing" the symptom of the
problem; so through symptom substitution, a new problem will occur. The so-called cured
smoker suddenly begins another compulsive habit, like eating or drinking.
Cognitive-Behavioral Approaches
Cognitive therapists, sometimes called cognitive-behavioral therapists, think that abnormal
behavior is the result of faulty thought patterns. Many psychologists consider cognitive therapy
to be an insight therapy. Cognitive-behavior therapy helps clients change both the way they think
and the way they behave. Through cognitive restructuring, or turning the faulty, disordered
thoughts into more realistic thoughts, the client may change abnormal behavior.
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy
Albert Ellis developed Rational Emotive Therapy (RET), which is also called rational emotive
behavior therapy (REBT), based on the idea that anxiety, guilt, depression, and other
psychological problems result from self-defeating thoughts. The therapist has the client confront
irrational thoughts by discussing his/her actions, his/her beliefs about those actions, and finally
the consequences of those beliefs. The actions, beliefs, and consequences he called the ABCs of
treatment. For instance, a young man is feeling guilty about not having helped his mother more
before she died. Ellis might have confronted this guilty belief with a statement like "And you
were the only person in the entire universe who could have helped her, right?" While defending
these beliefs, the client may see how absurd they truly are. Ellis believed that much of this
thinking involves the tyranny of the "shoulds," what we believe we must do, rather than what is
actually realistic or necessary.
Cognitive Triad Therapy
Aaron Beck also developed a cognitive therapy to alleviate faulty and negative thoughts. His
cognitive triad looks at what a person thinks about his/her Self, his/her World, and his/her
Future. Depressed individuals tend to have negative perceptions in all three areas. As noted by
Martin Seligman, depressed individuals tend to think they caused the negative events, the
negative events will affect everything they do, and the negative events will last forever. Such
thoughts and beliefs lead to low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety. The goal of therapy is to
help them change these irrationally negative beliefs into more positive and realistic views.
Failures are attributed to things outside their control and successes are seen as personal
accomplishments. Beck suggests specific tactics, including evaluating the evidence the client has
for and against automatic thoughts, reattributing the blame to situational factors rather than the
client's incompetence, and discussing alternative solutions to the problem. For example, instead
of blaming yourself for being stupid when the entire class does poorly on a math exam, you
might substitute the thought that you didn't have an adequate opportunity to study, and the test
may not have been valid.
Cognitive therapies have been demonstrated to be effective in treating depression, eating
disorders, chronic pain, marital discord, and anxiety disorders (generalized anxiety disorder,
panic disorder, agoraphobia, and social phobia).
Biological/Biomedical Treatments
Biological psychologists believe that abnormal behavior results from neurochemical imbalances,
abnormalities in brain structures, or possibly some genetic predisposition. Treatments, therefore,
include psychopharmacotherapy (the use of psychotropic drugs to treat mental disorders),
electroconvulsive therapy, and psychosurgery. Medical doctors, psychiatric nurse practitioners,
and a limited number of clinical psychologists can prescribe psychoactive drugs. Four major
classifications of psychotropic drugs are anxiolytics (antianxiety medications), antidepressants,
stimulants, and neuroleptics (antipsychotics).
Tranquilizers
Anxiolytics, also called tranquilizers and antianxiety drugs, include quick-acting
benzodiazepines such as the widely prescribed drugs Valium (diazepam), Librium
(chlordiazepoxide), and Xanax (alprazolam); and slow-acting BuSpar (buspirone).
Benzodiazepines increase availability of the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA to the limbic
system and reticular activating system where arousal is too high, reducing the anxiety felt by the
patient. Other therapies such as visualization, relaxation, and time management can be used in
conjunction with drugs so that the drugs may be tapered off over time, because patients can
develop unpleasant side effects and build up a tolerance to these compounds. Anxiolytics are
helpful in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, panic disorder, agoraphobia, and
generalized anxiety disorder.
Antidepressants
Antidepressant medications elevate mood by making monoamine neurotransmitters including
serotonin, norepinephrine, and/or dopamine more available at the synapse to stimulate
postsynaptic neurons. Types of antidepressants include monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs),
which inhibit the effects of chemicals that break down norepinephrine and serotonin; tricyclics,
which inhibit reuptake of serotonin; selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which
inhibit reuptake only of serotonin; and atypical antidepressants (sometimes called non-SSRIs),
some of which may inhibit reuptake of serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine, or a
combination of two of them. Commonly advertised SSRls include paroxetine (Paxil), fluoxetine
(Prozac), sertraline (Zoloft), citalopram (Celexa, Lexapro), and fluvoxamine (Luvox). NonSRRIs include bupropion (Wellbutrin) and velafaxine HCL (Effexor XR). They have all been
found effective for treating depression, and some have also been found effective for treating
anxiety disorders, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, and post-traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD). For treatment of bipolar disorder, lithium has been widely used to
stabilize mood, alone or with antidepressants. Anti-seizure medicines used to treat epilepsy, such
as valproic acid (Depakene), divalproex (Depakote), and Topiramate (Topamax) have also been
used.
Stimulants
Stimulants are psychoactive drugs, such as Ritalin (methylphenidate) and Dexedrine
(dextroamphetamine), that activate motivational centers and reduce activity in inhibitory centers
of the central nervous system by increasing activity of serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine
neurotransmitter systems. They are used to treat people with narcolepsy and people with
attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Antipsychotics
The last class of drugs, neuroleptics, are powerful medicines that lessen agitated behavior,
reduce tension, decrease hallucinations and delusions, improve social behavior, and produce
better sleep behavior, especially in schizophrenic patients. An excess of dopamine is thought to
be the cause of the schizophrenic symptoms; neuroleptics block dopamine receptors.
Neuroleptics include Thorazine (chlorpromazine), Haldol, and Clozaril. Unfortunately, these
drugs can have serious side effects, including tardive dyskinesia, or problems with walking,
drooling, and involuntary muscle spasms, which result from the blocking of dopamine at other
sites. These problems cause some patients to abandon the medication after hospitalization, which
results in a return of psychotic symptoms.
Other Biological Treatments
Some patients do not respond well to antidepressant drugs or psychotherapy. Electroconvulsive
shock treatment (ECT) is used as a last resort to treat severely depressed patients. ECT is
administered humanely, with the patient under anesthetic and given a muscle relaxant to prevent
injury from convulsions. Then the patient receives a momentary electric shock. Typically, the
procedure is repeated about six times over 2 weeks. Just how the procedure works is still
unknown, but many depressed, suicidal patients are restored to healthy functioning. The patient
usually experiences some (often temporary) memory loss immediately following the procedure,
but no apparent brain damage. A promising new painless treatment for severe depression is
repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) in which repeated pulses surge through a
magnetic coil positioned above the right eyebrow of the patient. The treatment is administered
daily for a few weeks. The treatment may work by stimulating the depressed patient's left frontal
lobe.
Psychosurgery, or the removal of brain tissue, can also be used to treat certain organic problems
that lead to abnormal behavior. Psychosurgery is a treatment of last resort because its effects are
irreversible. From about 1935 to 1955, the prefrontal lobotomy, which cut the main neural
tracts connecting lower brain regions to the frontal lobes, was performed on thousands of
schizophrenic patients, especially violent ones, to reduce the intensity of their emotional
responses. Unfortunately, following the lobotomies, many patients were left as emotional
zombies, with extensive brain damage. Today psychosurgery is very limited. One successful
procedure used for severe epilepsy is the corpus callosum transection, or split brain surgery, in
which only the corpus callosum between the left and right cerebral hemispheres is cut.
Modes of Therapy
So far we have discussed therapies that are largely individual—in other words, one-on-one.
Another way that psychological services can be delivered is in groups.
Group Therapy
The same types of therapies used in individual counseling can be used with a group of patients.
Typically, group therapy is more helpful than individual counseling in enabling the client to
discover that others have similar problems. Individuals receive information about their problems
from either the therapist or other group members. Financially, group therapy is also cheaper for
clients who might otherwise not be able to afford individual counseling. Less verbal clients and
those more resistant in individual settings may find it easier to open up about their problems in a
group setting. Clients get helpful feedback from peers that may allow them to gain better insight
into their own particular situations.
Couples and Family Therapy
This is especially true in family and marital counseling sessions. Trained professionals can direct
spouses and family members to openly discuss their individual perspectives on the same issue. In
the neutral setting of the therapist's office, individuals can come to better understand others'
feelings and beliefs and how their behavior affects others. The therapy can serve as a training
ground to practice better communication skills and bring about improved relationships.
Self-Help Groups
Self-help groups are yet another way that individuals who share the same problem may get
assistance. One of the best-known examples is Alcoholics Anonymous. Recovering alcoholics
get peer support and have an outlet to share their individual experiences. It should be noted,
however, that trained psychotherapists do not conduct these sessions. The responsibility for
leading the group is up to the group members themselves. Meetings can be attended anywhere in
the United States. New members can receive a sponsor, someone who has been in recovery for a
longer period of time, to call in emergency situations. A spiritual aspect underlies Alcohol
Anonymous's Twelve-Step Program as well.
Community and Preventive Approaches
With deinstitutionalization came the problem of how to help patients released from mental
hospitals and an ever-growing number of other people in need of aid in local communities. The
vast increase in the homeless population, many of whom have symptoms of schizophrenia, has
posed a problem that has not been solved. Yet these problems have led to the rise of a relatively
new subfield of psychology, community psychology. Community psychologists aim to promote
psychosocial change to prevent psychological disorders as well as to treat people with
psychopathologies in their local communities.
As part of the community mental health movement of the 1960s, local clinics cropped up. With
continued funding problems, these local clinics try to provide both treatment and preventive
services. One of their major goals is to treat people with psychological problems to prevent them
from getting worse and help them recover. They address unemployment, poverty, overcrowding,
and other stressful social problems that can affect mental health. Other initiatives include
prenatal and follow-up well-baby care, dissemination of information on sexually transmitted
diseases, suicide prevention programs, child abuse prevention, and training of paraprofessionals
to help community members cope with emergency situations. They hold free screenings for
depression and anxiety, sponsor suicide hotlines, and provide outreach programs for at-risk
children and teens.