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Psychotherapy
The Elements
a helping relationship.
Treatment: Subtypes
Clients:
about only half of the people who use mental health services in a
given year meet the criteria for a full-fledged mental disorder
(Kessler et al., 2005).
Therapists
Insight Therapies
probing the unconscious: the idea is to probe the murky depths of the
unconscious to discover the unresolved conflicts causing the clients
neurotic behaviour. To explore the unconscious, he or she relies on two
techniques:
for Freud, dreams were the royal road to the unconscious the most direct
means of access to the patients inner most conflicts, wishes, impulses etc.
I said to Mr. N near the end of the hour that I felt he was
struggling with his feelings about his fathers sexual life. He
seemed to be saying that his father was sexually not a very potent
man He also recalls that he once found a packet of condoms
under his fathers pillow when he was an adolescent and he though
My father must be going to prostitutes. I then intervened and
pointed out that the condoms under his fathers pillow seemed to
indicate more obviously that his father used the condoms with his
mother, who slept in the same bed. However, Mr. N wanted to
believe his wish- fulfilling fantasy: mother doesnt want sex with
father and father is not very potent. The patient was silent and the
hour ended.
therapeutic process
in client centred therapy, the client & the therapist work as equals!
guidance
and
keeps
Positive Psychology
well being therapy (Fava, 1999): seeks to enhance clients selfacceptance, purpose in life, autonomy & personal growth. has
been used successfully in the treatment of mood disorders &
anxiety disorders (Fava et al., 2005).
Behavior Therapies
Cognitive
Behavioral
Treatments:
use
varied
combinations of verbal interventions and behavioural
modifications to help clients maladaptive patterns of
thinking.
inadequacies
without
to begin with, clients are taught to detect their automatic negative thoughts,
the sorts if self-defeating arguments that people are prone to make when
analysing problems. e.g. No one really likes me. or Its all my fault. etc.
clients are then trained to subject these automatic thoughts to reality testing.
the therapist helps them to see how unrealistically negative the thoughts
are.
Clients are given homework assignments that focus on changing their overt
behaviours. eg. one shy, insecure young man in cognitive therapy was told
to go to a singles bar & engage three different women in conversations for
up to 5 minutes each.
Biomedical Therapies
Valium, Xanax & other drugs in the benzodiazepine family are often
called tranquilisers. & given to millions of people who simply suffer
from chronic nervous tension.
for many years, lithium was the only effective drug in this
category. Lithium has proven valuable in preventing
future episodes of both mania & depression in patients
with bipolar illness (Post & Altshuler, 2009).
in ECT, electrodes are attached to the skull over one or both temporal lobes
of the brain.
this current should trigger a brief (5 - 20 seconds) seizure, during which the
patient usually loses consciousness.