PSYCH 9C Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Behaviour Therapy, Clonazepam, Therapeutic Relationship
Lecture 3
Biomedical Treatments
Pharmacological Treatments
●Psychotropic drugs = medications that control/ameliorate
symptoms of mental disorders
●Antipsychotic medication
○Block dopamine receptors in key brain pathways
○67% of people with schizo had spent their lives in
mental “hospitals” in the past, and these drugs helped
deinstitutionalize the people
○Many people, though, are not getting adequate care
because there are not a lot of establishments to help
them.
○About 50% of homeless people have a mental disorder
○People argue we have just moved people with schizo to
the streets by closing hospitals
●Antidepressant medications
○MAO-Is (Nardil…) target norepinephrine
■Rarely prescribed because people that take these
have a strict diet because of the way the drug
acts, unless you want sever medical consequences
○Tricyclics (Tofranil…) target serotonin
■Sexual and physiological side effects, not
commonly prescribed
○SSRIs target serotonin (Zoloft, Prozac…)
■Prevent serotonin from binding so it is more
readily available
●Anti-Anxiety Medications
○Tranquilizers (anxiolytics): increase GABA, an
inhibitory neurotransmitter
■GABA can prevent other things from working, so
this can dampen anxiety response
○Beta Blockers: controls autonomic arousal
■Rather than working in brain, they control the
autonomic arousal that comes from a natural
response anxious people have
■Doesn’t work for many people with severe anxiety
○Benzodiazepines (Valium, Xanax, Klonopin)
■Very fast acting with a steep drop-off
■Often not prescribed for long-term treatment of
anxiety
■Addiction common for this so doctors have to back
off on their prescriptions of these
■Lot of interaction effects with alcohol
●Can’t mix with alcohol
●Severe depression of basic central nervous
system; hard to communicate, can die this
way
○Commonly treated with antidepressants
■Not many side effects, helpful in anxiety
Non-Pharmacological Treatments
●Psychosurgery: remove or disconnect brain areas
○Prefrontal lobotomy: sever the connections between the
thalamus and the frontal lobes
■Very severe side effects, changes who the person
is
○Rarely, if ever, used now as a psychological treatment
○Today the disorder that we commonly use this treatment
for is
epilepsy
■When people with epilepsy get brain surgery it is
because meds do not work to combat seizures
■Only done if they can identify where in the brain
the seizures are coming from
■Surgery to kill section of the brain, usually
small, so limited side effects
■Very effective in treating their seizures
●Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)
○Used to be called shock treatment
○Induce a seizure by passing an electric current
through the person’s head
■Muscle relaxer given so they don’t convulse; less
physical side effects
○Originally intended to treat schizophrenia; used for
other disorders now
○Reduce depressive symptoms
Document Summary
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