PSYC 111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Insomnia, Group Psychotherapy, Polypharmacy
27 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Psychotherapy is a psychological intervention designed to help people resolve emotional, behavioral,
and interpersonal problems and improve the quality of their lives.
People with specific problems, but also who contend frequently with helplessness, social isolation,
and a sense of failure. Women are more likely to seek treatment than men are. Caucasian Americans
are more likely to seek treatment.
The effectiveness of therapy depends on how motivated the client is to get better.
Professional helpers understand how to operate effectively within the mental health system;
appreciate complex ethical, professional, and personal issues; and can select treatments effectively.
Effective therapists are warm and direct, and maintain a positive working relationship.
Insight Therapies
They aim to cultivate insight, that is, expanded self-awareness and knowledge.
Psychodynamic therapies: Treatments inspired by classical psychoanalysis and influenced by
Freud's techniques. It is less costlier than psychoanalysis, is briefer and only involves meeting once or
twice a week. Share three beliefs:
oThey believe the cause of abnormal behavior, including unconscious conflicts,
wishes, and impulses, stem from traumatic or adverse childhood experiences.
oThey strive to analyze distressing thoughts and feelings clients avoid, wishes and
fantasies, recurring themes and life patterns, significant past events, and the therapeutic
relationship.
oThey believe that when clients achieve insight into previously unconscious
material, the causes and the significance of symptoms will become evident, often causing
symptoms to disappear.
Freud's goal was to decrease guilt and frustration and make the unconscious conscious by bringing to
awareness previously repressed impulses, conflicts, and memories. Six primary approaches:
oFree Association: Clients lie on the couch comfortably while therapists instruct
them to say whatever thoughts come to their mind. This is called free association
because clients are permitted to express themselves without censorship.
oInterpretation: From free association, analysts form hypotheses about the
clients difficulties and share them with them. Therapists formulate interpretations of the
unconscious bases of dreams, emotions. However, if interpretations are offered before
the client is ready to accept it, it can lead to anxiety.
oDream analysis: Dreams express unconscious themes. Therapist interprets the
relationship between the dream's symbolic significance and the client's conscious life.
oResistance: Clients experience resistance: they try to avoid further
confrontation. They skip therapy or stop responding.
oTransference: Clients project intense, unrealistic feelings and expectations from
the past onto the therapist. The analyst becomes the focus of emotions once directed
towards significant persons in the clients past.
oWorking through: Therapists help the client process their problems. They must
address conflicts and help achieve healthy behavior patterns.
Neo-Freudians are concerned with conscious aspects of the clients functioning.
Individuation is the integration of opposing aspects of the personality.
Evaluation:
oInsight: Research shows insight into our emotional history is not required to relieve
psychological distress. Clients must engage in adaptive behaviors of everyday life - working
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
through. Therapeutic interpretations are hard to falsify because there is no evidence for it.
There are also chances of placebo effects.
oRepressed traumatic memories: Disturbing events are more memorable and less
subject to being forgotten than everyday occurrences. However, repressed memories might be
weak and subject to distortion.
Humanistic therapies: Emphasis on insight, self-actualization, and the belief that human nature is
basically positive. Rejects the interpretive techniques of psychoanalysis. It strives to understand the
clients' inner worlds through empathy and focus on clients' thoughts and feelings in the present
moment. It stresses the importance of assuming responsibility for decisions, and not attributing it to
past events.
Person-Centered Therapy : Rogers developed person-centered therapy in which therapists don't tell
clients how to solve their problems and clients can use the therapy hour however they choose. It is
non directive because clients can choose their own course and therapists don't diagnose their
problems or try to find the root cause of their difficulties. Three conditions must be satisfied:
oTherapist must be authentic, genuine person who reveals his own reactions to what the
client is communicating.
oTherapist must express unconditional positive regard - a nonjudgmental acceptance of
all feelings the client expresses.it elicits positive self concept.
oTherapist must relate to clients with empathic understanding. It can be done through
reflection - mirroring back the clients feelings.
Through this, people gain increased awareness and self-acceptance and engage in adaptive
behaviors. Techniques include showing warmth and empathy. It is a one to two session procedure.
Gestalt means an organized whole. Gestalt therapists believe that people with psychological
difficulties are incomplete gestalts because they have excluded from their awareness experiences
and aspects of their personality that trigger anxiety.
Evaluation:
oTherapeutic Relationship: Therapeutic relationship is very helpful since forming a strong
alliance helps in major success of therapy. It works better than any specific technique used
during therapy. But some people can derive considerable benefits from self-help programs and
do not need therapeutic relationships. Sometimes, clients may improve and then develop an
emotional bond with the therapist.
oEffectiveness: Person centered therapy is more effective than no treatment. But it may
not be of more help than a placebo treatment of merely chatting with a nonprofessional.
Group Therapies
Group therapy is helping professionals have appreciated the value of treating more than one person
at a time.
Used for people dealing with divorce, gender-identity, alcoholism, eating disorders.
Self-help groups are composed of peers who share a similar problem - Alcoholics Anonymous.
Strategic family interventions are designed to remove barriers to effective communication.
Behavioral Approaches
Behavior therapists focus on the specific behaviors that lead the client to seek therapy and address
the current variables that maintain problematic thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Behavior changes
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Psychotherapy is a psychological intervention designed to help people resolve emotional, behavioral, and interpersonal problems and improve the quality of their lives. People with specific problems, but also who contend frequently with helplessness, social isolation, and a sense of failure. Women are more likely to seek treatment than men are. Caucasian americans are more likely to seek treatment. The effectiveness of therapy depends on how motivated the client is to get better. Professional helpers understand how to operate effectively within the mental health system; appreciate complex ethical, professional, and personal issues; and can select treatments effectively. Effective therapists are warm and direct, and maintain a positive working relationship. They aim to cultivate insight, that is, expanded self-awareness and knowledge. Psychodynamic therapies: treatments inspired by classical psychoanalysis and influenced by. It is less costlier than psychoanalysis, is briefer and only involves meeting once or twice a week.
