PSYCHOLOGY
PRINCIPLES IN PRACTICE
Chapter 19
METHODS OF THERAPY
Section 1:
Section 2:
Section 3:
Section 4:
What Is Therapy?
The Psychoanalytic Approach
The Humanistic Approach
Cognitive Therapy and Behavior
Therapy
Section 5: Biological Therapy
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Journal 1: What is therapy? What are some different kinds
of therapy?
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Crash Course: Psychotherapy
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Today, there are two main categories of therapy
 psychotherapy – a trained therapist uses
psychological techniques to assist someone
seeking to overcome difficulties or achieve
personal growth
 biomedical therapy – offers medication or
other biological treatments
 Some therapists, combine techniques
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Chapter 19
Section 2: The Psychoanalytic Approach
PSYCHOLOGY
PRINCIPLES IN PRACTICE
Question: What are the major techniques of psychoanalysis?
MAJOR TECHNIQUES OF
PSYCHOANALYSIS
 Free Association – the
analyst asks the client to
relax and then to say
whatever comes to mind –
taps into unconscious
thoughts and feelings
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 Dream Analysis – analyst interprets the content of
clients’ dreams to unlock these unconscious
thoughts and feelings
 Transference – the patient’s transfer of emotions
associated with other relationships to the therapist
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Chapter 19
Section 3: The Humanistic Approach
PSYCHOLOGY
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HUMANISTIC THERAPY
 Emphasizes people’s inherent potential for self-
fulfillment.
 Assumes that people with psychological problems
merely need help tapping their inner resources so that
they can grow and reach their full potential
 Humanistic therapists try to give clients new insights
and because they share this goal, the psychodynamic
and humanistic therapies are often referred to as
insight therapies.
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Humanistic therapists differ from psychodynamic therapist:
 Humanistic therapists aim to boost people’s self-fullfillment by
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helping them grow in self-awareness and self-acceptance
Promoting this growth, not curing illness, is the focus of therapy.
Those in therapy are referred to as “clients” or “persons” rather
than “patients”
The path to growth is taking immediate responsibility for one’s
feelings and actions, rather than uncovering hidden causes
Conscious thoughts are more important than the unconscious
The present and future are more important than the past. Therapy
focuses on exploring feelings as they occur rather than achieving
insights into the childhood origins of the feelings.
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Carl Rogers (1902-1987) and client centered therapy
 Client-centered therapy is often called person-centered
therapy, focuses on the person’s conscious selfperceptions.
 It is non-directive – the therapist listens, without judging
or interpreting, and refrains from directing the client
toward certain insights
 Rogers believed that most people already possessed the
resources for growth and encouraged therapists to foster
this growth by exhibiting genuineness, acceptance, and
empathy
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Behavior Therapies
 Behavior therapists doubt the healing power of selfawareness. (Ex: You can become aware of why you are
highly anxious during exams and still be anxious.)
 Rather than delving deeply below the surface looking for
inner causes, they assume that problem behaviors are the
problems.
 Learning principles, such as classical conditioning and
operant conditions, are useful tools for eliminating
unwanted behaviors.
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Cognitive Therapies
 Cognitive therapies assume that our thinking influences our
feelings.
 Ex: Self-blaming and overgeneralized explanations of bad
events are often a part of the cycle of depression. If
depressed, we may interpret a suggestion as criticism,
disagreement as dislike, praise as flattery, friendliness as
pity.
 Dwelling on such thoughts sustains negative thinking.
 Cognitive therapists aim to help people change their minds
with new, more constructive ways of thinking.
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Albert Ellis (1913-2007)
 “The problem with
most therapy is that
it helps you feel
better. But you don’t
get better. You have
to back it up with
action, action,
action.”
American psychologist who in 1955
developed rational emotive behavior
therapy.
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Cognitive Behavior Therapy
 Takes a double barrel approach to depression and
other disorders.
 Widely practiced integrative approach that aims not
only to alter the way people think but also to alter
the way they act.
 In therapy, people learn to replace catastrophizing
with more realistic appraisals and, as homework, to
practice behaviors that counter their problem.
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Chapter 19
Section 1: What Is Therapy?
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PSYCHOTHERAPY SETTINGS
 Individual Therapy - Some people do better with because they
need more personal attention than they would receive as part of a
group
 Group Therapy helps people realize that they are not alone and that
it enables people to see others benefiting from the therapy
 Family Therapy assumes that no person is an island. We live and
grow in relation to others, especially families, yet we also work to
find an identity outside of our family. Therapists view the family
as a system and tries to open up communication within the family
to solve and prevent conflicts.
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Chapter 19
Section 5: Biological Therapy
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MAJOR BIOLOGICAL TREATMENTS
 Drug Therapy – consists of prescription drugs such as
antipsychotic, anxiolytic (anti-anxiety), antidepressant and mood
stabilizers drugs for the treatment of psychological disorders
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 Brain Stimulation - Electroconvulsive therapy , first
introduced in 1938, manipulates the brain by
shocking it.
 Today, the patient receives a general anesthetic and a
muscle relaxant to prevent convulsions. A
psychiatrist then delivers to the patient’s brain 30 to
60 seconds of electric current in brief pulses. Within
30 minutes, the patient awakens and remembers
nothing of the treatment or preceding hours.
 Many studies confirms that ECT can effectively treat
severe depression in “treatment-resistant” patients
who have not responded to drug therapy.
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 Psychosurgery – brain surgery
used to treat psychological
disorders. Most well known
procedure was the lobotomy. It
was used to treat emotionally
disturbed and violent
individuals. The nerves
connecting the frontal lobes to
the emotion controlling centers
of the inner brain were severed.
Today, we use MRI-guided
precision surgery in only
extreme cases as a last resort.
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continued . . .
 * Therapeutic Lifestyle Change – promotes regular
aerobic exercise, adequate sleep, light exposure, social
connection, anti-rumination (identifying and reducing
negative thoughts) and nutritional supplements such as
omega-fatty acids
 In a 12-week study of 74 people who underwent
therapeutic lifestyle changes, 77% of those who
completed the program experienced relief from
depressive symptoms, compared with 19% in those
assigned treatment-as-usual control condition
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 TAKE NOTES ON THE FOLLOWING TOPICS ON YOUR OWN
 1. Rational – Emotive Behavior Therapy (p. 447)
 2. Beck’s Cognitive Therapy (p. 447)
 3. Counterconditioning (p. 449)
 4. Operant Conditioning (p. 450)
 5. Evaluation of Behavior Therapy (p. 451)
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