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Abnormal Psychology PSY404

LESSON 21

PSYCHOTHERAPY

Global Therapies

Following are the global therapies-which help people to recognize and change features of their personality

that are the root of their problem.

Psychodynamic

Humanistic

Existential

Gestalt

Problem based therapies

Problem based therapies focus on the symptoms and specific complaints. It includes cognitive, behavioral

and biological therapies.

Psychoanalytic therapy

Psychoanalytic therapy focuses on the unconscious motives, repressed wishes and childhood experiences

Techniques of psychoanalysis includes

Free association, dream analysis, analysis of resistance , transference

Positive transference

Negative transference

Ambivalent transference

Counter transference

Humanistic therapies

Humanistic therapists help their clients to look at them selves and their situations more accurately and

acceptingly with the aim of actualizing their full potential as human beings.

Focus on self actualization. Client centered therapy tries to create a very supportive climate in which clients

can see themselves more honestly and begin to accept what they discover themselves to be.

Gestalt therapy

Gestalt therapy make clients recognize and accept their needs through techniques of role playing, exercises

and games.

Existential therapies

Existential therapists form close relationships with clients and encourage them to accept responsibility for

their lives, to recognize their freedom to choose a different course of action.

Existential neurosis: When a person suffers from meaninglessness in life.

Behavioral therapies

The goal of behavioral therapies is to identify the client's problem causing behaviors and to replace them

with more appropriate ones.

· Aversion

· Flooding/ implosion

· Systematic desensitization

Cognitive therapies

Cognitive therapies based on the premise that abnormal functioning is caused by maladaptive assumptions

and thoughts.

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Abnormal Psychology PSY404

·Rational emotive behavioral therapy

·Beck's cognitive therapy

Biological therapies

Biological therapies include physical, chemical methods developed to help overcome their psychological

problems

· Psychopharmacology

· ECT

· Psychosurgery

Psychoanalytic Therapy

Psychodynamic therapists believe that today's mental disorder is the result of yesterday's emotional trauma.

· Focus is on childhood experiences as agents of mental disorders

· From Freudian psychoanalysis to modern therapies all are based on object relations theory or self

theory.

· The goal of psychodynamic therapy is

· to help clients uncover past traumatic events and the inner conflicts that have resulted from them

· To resolve, settle these conflicts

· To resume the interrupted personal development

The psychodynamic therapy is considered the insight therapy

This process of gaining insight is not to be rushed or imposed

The therapist must guide the therapeutic discussions so that the clients must discover for

themselves

Techniques of Psychoanalysis

The techniques of psychoanalysis include

·Free association

·Dream analysis interpretation of dreams

·Slip of tongue-- psychopathology of everyday life

· slip of pen

·Transference

·Positive transference

·Negative transference

·Counter transference

·Catharsis--sweeping the chimney phenomena

Freudian Psychoanalysis

Breuer's collaborator, Sigmund Freud, adopted the hypnotic method for a time, but he soon

concluded that hypnosis was not necessary to encourage open expression.

Instead, Freud used a method called free association, in which he simply told his patients to speak

freely about whatever thoughts crossed their mind, without censoring them. Usually due to

unconscious control blocking and resistance results. when a client says that I forgot that I had an

appointment with you or I can not recall events of the past, well he is being defensive, guarded and

he is resisting self disclosure.

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Abnormal Psychology PSY404

This method of Free Association became a cornerstone of Freud's famous treatment,

psychoanalysis.

The true benefit of free association, in Freud's view, was that it revealed aspects of the unconscious

mind.

Freud also believed that dreaming and slips of the tongue (now called Freudian slips) provided

especially revealing information about the unconscious.

Thus, according to Freud, free association, dreams, and slips of the tongue are valuable because

they serve as "windows into the unconscious."

The ultimate goal of psychoanalysis is to bring formerly unconscious material into conscious

awareness.

This is what Freud called insight.

Freud asserted that insight is sufficient for curing psychological disorders.

The analyst's main tool for promoting insight is interpretation.

In offering an interpretation, the analyst suggests hidden meanings to patients' accounts of their

past and present life.

One essential element in probing the unconscious mind and offering interpretations is therapeutic

neutrality.

Psychoanalysts maintain a distant stance toward their patients in order to minimize their influence

on free association.

The analyst's distant stance is thought to encourage transference, the process whereby patients

transfer their feelings about some key figure in their life onto the shadowy figure of the analyst.

Insight into the transference relationship presumably helps patients understand how and why they

are relating to the analyst in the same dysfunctional manner in which they related to a loved one.

A common misconception about psychoanalysis is that the ultimate goal of insight is to rid the

patient of all defenses.

According to Freud, defenses are essential for the functioning of a healthy personality.

Thus, rather than ridding the patient of defenses, one goal of psychoanalysis is to replace them.

Defenses such as denial and projection are confronted because they distort reality dramatically,

whereas "healthier" defenses, such as rationalization and sublimation, are left unchallenged.

A second goal of psychoanalysis is to help patients become more aware of their basic needs or

drives so that they may find socially and psychologically appropriate outlets for them.

The Decline of Freudian Psychoanalysis

Because psychoanalysis requires substantial time, expense, and self-exploration, it is accessible only to

people who are relatively well functioning, introspective, and financially secure.

In many respects, psychoanalysis now is viewed as a process of self-understanding, not a treatment for

specific emotional disorders.

Although Freudian psychoanalysis has declined greatly, the approach spawned numerous therapeutic

variations broadly referred to as psychodynamic psychotherapy.

Psychodynamic psychotherapists often are more engaged and directive in therapy and treatment may be

relatively brief in comparison to psychoanalysis.