PSYC 1002 Chapter Notes - Chapter 16: Ewan Cameron, Psychotherapy, Group Psychotherapy
2 May 2018
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PSYC 1002
Chapter 16: Treatment of Psychological Disorders
• During the 1950s, Ewan Cameron was engaged in research designed to examine
brainwashing and thought-control techniques, patients were exposed to experimental
techniques; extended drug-induced periods of sleep, massive electroconvulsive therapy
regimens, sensory deprivation, hours of tape-recorded messages, psychic driving, and
LSD treatment, most treatments was done without their knowledge or consent,
objective was to rid them of old behaviour patterns and replace them with new ones
Treatments: How Many Types Are There?
• Psychotherapists use many treatment methods: discussion, advice, emotional support,
persuasion, conditioning procedures, relaxation training, role-playing, drug therapy,
biofeedback, and group therapy, estimates is over 400 approaches to treatment
• Approaches to treatment can be classified into three major categories
o Insight therapies: talk theap i the taditio of Feud’s pshoaalsis, liets
engage in complex verbal interactions with their therapists, the goal in the
disussios is to pusue ieased isight egadig the atue of the liet’s
difficulties and to sort through possible solutions
o Behaviour therapies: Behaviour therapies are based on the principles of learning,
Behaviour therapists make direct efforts to alter problematic responses
(phobias) and maladaptive habits (e.g., drug use), work on changig liets’ oet
behaviours, use different procedures for different problems, most procedures
involve classical conditioning, operant conditioning, or observational learning
o Biomedical therapies: iole iteetios ito a peso’s iologial
functioning, most widely used procedures are drug therapy and
electroconvulsive (shock) therapy, drug therapy has become one of the most
dominant modes for treating psychological disorders
Clients: Who Seeks Therapy?
• Therapeutic triad (therapists, treatments, clients)
• People often delay for many years before finally seeking treatment for their
psychological problems
• A client in treatment does’t necessarily have an identifiable psychological disorder
• Some people seek professional help for everyday problems (career decisions, for
instance) or vague feelings of discontent, only about half of the people who use mental
health services in a given year meet the criteria for a full-fledged mental disorder
• Many people equate seeking therapy with admitting personal weakness
Therapists: Who Provides Professional Treatment?
• Primary care physicians are the main source of mental health care and information
• These sources of assistance may provide excellent advice, but their counsel does not
qualify as therapy
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Psychologists:
• Two types of psychologists may provide therapy:
o Clinical psychologists: training emphasizes the treatment of full-fledged
disorders
o Counselling psychologists: training is slanted toward the treatment of everyday
adjustment problems
o In practice, however, there is quite a bit of overlap between clinical and
counselling psychologists in training, skills, and the clientele that they serve
• Traditionally psychologists had to earn a doctoral degree (Ph.D., Psy.D., or Ed.D.) which
requires 5-7 years of trainig eod a ahelo’s degee, some provinces and
territories changed their regulations, allowing that a psychologist may have either a
Ph.D. or an M.A. (an M.A. degree typically takes 2 years)
• Psychologists use either insight or behavioral approaches
• Psychiatrists, are more likely to use behavioral techniques and less likely to use
psychoanalytic methods.
• For some individuals needing professional assistance for psychological disorders, their
choice of a health practitioner is limited by the fact that treatment by psychologists is
not part of the government medical insurance funding system
Psychiatrists:
• Psychiatrists: are physicians who specialize in the diagnosis and treatment of
psychological disorders
• Many psychiatrists treat every day behavioural problem but devote more time to
relatively severe disorders (schizophrenia, mood disorders) and less time to everyday
marital, family, job, and school problems
• Psychiatrists have an M.D. degree, their graduate training requires four years of course
work in medical school and a four-year apprenticeship in a residency at a hospital
• Psychiatrists increasingly emphasize drug therapies, which the other, nonmedical
helpig pofessios a’t poide, psychiatrists are more likely to use psychoanalysis and
less likely to use group therapies or behaviour therapies
Other Mental Health Professionals:
• Several other mental health professions also provide psychotherapy services, in
hospitals and other institutions, clinical social workers and psychiatric nurses often work
as part of a treatment team with a psychologist or psychiatrist
• Many counsellors also provide therapeutic services, usually found working in schools,
colleges, and assorted human service agencies (youth centres, geriatric centres, family-
planning centres), often specialize in particular types of problems, such as vocational
counselling, marital counselling, rehabilitation counselling, and drug counselling
Insight Therapies:
• Insight therapies: involve verbal interactions intended to enhance clients self-knowledge
and promote healthful changes in personality and behaviour
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• Psychoanalysis: an insight therapy that emphasizes the recovery of unconscious
conflicts, motives, and defenses through techniques such as free association and
transference
• Freud mostly treated anxiety-dominated disturbances, such as phobic, panic, obsessive-
compulsive, and conversion disorders, which were then called neuroses
• Freud believed that neurotic problems are caused by unconscious conflicts left over
from early childhood
• He thought that these inner conflicts involve battles among the id, ego, and superego,
usually over sexual and aggressive impulses, he theorized that people depend on
defence mechanisms to avoid confronting these conflicts, which remain hidden in the
depths of the unconscious
• He noted that defensive maneuvers often lead to self-defeating behaviour, he asserted
that defences tend to be only partially successful in alleviating anxiety, guilt, and other
distressing emotions
• Free association: clients spontaneously express their thoughts and feelings exactly as
they occur, with as little censorship as possible
• Clients expound on anything that comes to mind, regardless of how trivial, silly, or
embarrassing it might be, gradually, most clients begin to let everything pour out
without conscious censorship
• Dream analysis: the therapist interprets the symbolic meaning of the clients dreams
• Freud saw dreams as the oal oad to the uosious the ost diet eas of
aess to patiets’ ieost conflicts, wishes, and impulses
• Clients are encouraged and trained to remember their dreams, which they describe in
therapy, the therapist analyzes the symbolism in the dreams to interpret their meaning
• Itepetatio: efes to the theapist’s attepts to eplai the ie sigifiae of the
liet’s thoughts, feeligs, eoies, ad ehaious
• Resistance: refers to largely unconscious defensive maneuvers intended to hinder the
progress of therapy
• Cliets t to esist the helpig poess eause the do’t at to fae up to the
painful, disturbing conflicts that they have buried in their unconscious, although they
have sought help, they are reluctant to confront their problems
• Clients may show up late for their sessions, may merely pretend to engage in free
association, or may express hostility toward their therapist
• Transference: occurs when clients unconsciously start relating to their therapist in ways
that mimic critical relationships in their lives
• A client might start relating to a therapist as if the therapist were an overprotective
mother a rejecting brother, or a passive spouse, the client transfers conflicting feelings
about important people onto the therapist
• Psychoanalysts encourage transference so that clients can re-enact relationships with
crucial people in the context of therapy, re-enactments can help bring repressed
feelings and conflicts to the surface, allowing the client to work through them
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