Download Psychological Interventions

Psychological Interventions
Psychotherapy: What is it?




Treatment or prevention of problems
Behaviors, feelings, thoughts…symptoms?
Promotion of personal growth & development
Trained professional / professional relationship
Does psychotherapy work?



On average, yes, to some degree
But…not everyone benefits
Not all problems can be alleviated
–


e.g., panic disorder—curable; alcoholism—mild
relief possible
Not all forms of psychotherapy work
Equivalence across types?
Common features of most forms of
psychotherapy






Therapist expertise
Catharsis, anxiety reduction
Therapeutic alliance, supportive relationship
Insight, explanation of problems
Competence, mastery
Positive expectancies
Patient/Client variables:
Who benefits the most?

YAVIS
–







Young, attractive, verbal, intelligent, successful
But…depends on type of intervention, the nature of the
problem, etc.
Level of distress?
Motivation
Openness
Gender?
Ethnicity?
SES?
Therapist characteristics





The importance of the therapeutic alliance
Empathy, positive regard, genuineness?
Necessary, but not sufficient
Experience?
Personal psychotherapy?
The Course of Psychotherapy





Initial contact
Assessment
Establish goals of treatment
Implementation of treatment
Termination, Evaluation, Follow-up
Psychotherapy Research




Eysenck’s (1952) report
Conducting psychotherapy research
Treatment group
Control group
–
–

Waiting list, attention-only,
Pre-, post-assessment of functioning
Follow-up
Comparative Psychotherapy
Studies


Compare 2 or more types of psychotherapy
Meta-analysis
–
–

Smith & Glass (1980)
–
–

Examines the effect size across studies of various types of
psychotherapy in comparison to control group or other
therapies
Effect size=mean difference between treatment & control
group scores divided by standard deviation of control group
Average effect size for all psychotherapies examined was .85
(standard deviations)
The average person who receives therapy is better off than
80% of persons who do not
Problems with meta-analyses
Process Research





Examine the interaction between therapist &
patient during the course of therapy
Examine variables such as:
Speech time & duration
Types of therapist & patient interactions
May use interpersonal coding systems
Recent trends in psychotherapy
research

Matching patients to specific treatments
–




What types of therapy work for what type of patient
(or type of disorder)?
What components of therapy are most effective
Psychotherapy vs. medication
Practice guidelines
Empirically validated treatments (empirically
supported treatments)