Psych Ch. 16: Methods of Therapy

Empathetic understanding

In client-centered therapy, the ability to perceive a client's feelings from the client's frame of reference. A quality of the good client-centered therapist.

Wish fulfillment

In dreams, the acting out of ideas and impulses that are repressed when one is conscious.

Successive approximations

In operant conditioning, a series of behaviors that gradually become more similar to a target behavior.

Interpretation

In psychoanalysis, an explanation of a client's utterance according to psychoanalytic theory.

Catharsis

In psychoanalysis, the expression of repressed feelings and impulses to allow the release of the psychic energy associated with them.

Free association

In psychoanalysis, the uncensored uttering of all thoughts that come to mind.

Manifest content

In psychodynamic theory, the reported content of dreams.

Latent content

In psychodynamic theory, the symbolized or underlying content of dreams.

Consequences

In self-control methods, clients are taught how to change the behavior by manipulating its antecedents and _______.

Functional

In self-control methods, clients first engage in a(n) ________ analysis of problem behavior.

Systems

In the ______ approach to family therapy, family interaction is modified to enhance the growth of family members and the family unit as a whole.

Unconditional

The client-centered therapist shows _______ positive regard, empathetic understanding, and genuineness.

Psychodynamic therapy

A type of psychotherapy that is based on Freud's thinking and that assumes that psychological problems reflect early childhood experiences and internal conflicts.

Rebound anxiety

Anxiety that can occur when one discontinues use of a tranquilizer.

Frame of reference

In client-centered therapy, one's unique patterning of perceptions and attitudes according to which one evaluates events.

Functional analysis

A systematic study of behavior in which one identifies the stimuli that trigger problem behavior and the reinforcers that maintain it.

Unconditional positive regard

(a) An enduring expression of esteem for the essential value of a person. (b) In client-centered therapy, the acceptance of the value of another person, although not necessarily acceptance of everything the person does.

Modeling

(a) In social-cognitive theory, exhibiting behaviors that others will imitate or acquire through observational learning. (b) A behavior-therapy technique in which a client observes and imitates a person who approaches and copes with feared objects or situations.

Social skills training

A behavior-therapy method for helping people in their interpersonal relations that uses self-monitoring, behavior rehearsal, and feedback.

Aversive conditioning

A behavior-therapy technique in which undesired responses are inhibited by pairing repugnant or offensive stimuli with them.

Token economy

A controlled environment in which people are reinforced for desired behaviors with tokens (such as poker chips) that may be exchanged for privileges.

Sedative

A drug that relieves nervousness or agitation or puts one to sleep.

Humanistic therapy

A form of psychotherapy that focuses on the client's subjective, conscious experience in the "here and now."

Couple therapy

A form of therapy in which a couple is treated as the client and helped to improve communication skills and manage conflict.

Family therapy

A form of therapy in which the family unit is treated as the client.

Cognitive therapy

A form of therapy that focuses on how clients' cognitions (expectations, attitudes, beliefs, etc.) lead to distress and may be modified to relieve distress and promote adaptive behavior.

Meta-analysis

A method for combining and averaging the results of individual research studies.

Ego analyst

A psychodynamically oriented therapist who focuses on the conscious, coping behavior of the ego instead of the hypothesized, unconscious functioning of the id.

Phallic symbol

A sign that represents the penis.

Psychotherapy

A systematic interaction between a therapist and a client that brings psychological principles to bear on influencing the client's thoughts, feelings, and/or behavior to help that client overcome psychological disorders, adjust to problems in living, or develop as an individual.

Genuineness

In client-centered therapy, openness and honesty in responding to the client.

Absolutist

Aaron Beck notes four types of cognitive errors that contribute to clients' miseries: selective abstraction of the world as a harmful place; overgeneralization; magnification of the importance of negative events, and ______ thinking, or looking at the world in black and white rather than shades of gray.

Antidepressant

Acting to relieve depression.

Irrational

Albert Ellis' REBT confronts clients with the ways in which ______ beliefs contribute to problems such as anxiety and depression.

Rational-emotive behavior therapy (REBT)

Albert Ellis's form of therapy that encourages clients to challenge and correct irrational beliefs and maladaptive behaviors.

Asylum

An institution for the care of the mentally ill.

Selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)

Antidepressant drugs that work by blocking the reuptake of serotonin by presynaptic neurons.

Serotonin

Antidepressants heighten the action of the neurotransmitters ________ and noradrenaline.

Learning

Behavior therapy applies principles of ________ to bring about desired behavioral changes.

What is behavior therapy?

Behavior therapy relies on learning principles (for example, conditioning and observational learning) to help clients develop adaptive behavior patterns and discontinue maladaptive ones.

Desensitization

Behavior-therapy methods for reducing fears including flooding; systematic _______, in which a client is gradually exposed to more fear-arousing stimuli; and modeling.

Client-centered therapy

Carl Rogers's method of psychotherapy, which emphasizes the creation of a warm, therapeutic atmosphere that frees clients to engage in self-exploration and self-expression.

Nondirective

Client-centered therapy is a ________ method that provides clients with an accepting atmosphere that enables them to overcome roadblocks to self-actualization.

What is Carl Rogers' method of client-centered therapy?

Client-centered therapy uses non directive methods to help clients overcome obstacles to self-actualization. The therapist shows unconditional positive regard, empathic understanding, and genuineness.

Is

Current research shows that psychotherapy _____ effective in the treatment of psychological disorders.

Depression

ECT is mainly used to treat severe cases of ________.

Catharsis, abreaction

Freud believed that psychoanalysis would promote ______, that is, the spilling forth of repressed psychic energy.

Dreams

Freud considered _______ to be the "royal road" to the unconscious.

Psychoanalysis

Freud's method of exploring human personality; the school of psychology that asserts that much of our behavior and mental processes are governed by unconscious ideas and impulses that have their origins in childhood conflicts.

Unconscious

Freud's method of psychoanalysis attempts to shed light on _________ con flits that are pressed to lie at the roots of clients' problems.

Gestalt therapy

Fritz Perls's form of psychotherapy, which attempts to integrate conflicting parts of the personality through directive methods designed to help clients perceive their whole selves.

Directive

Gestalt therapy provides _______ methods that are designed to help clients accept responsibility and integrate conflicting parts of the personality.

More

Group therapy is ______ economical than individual therapy.

How have people with psychological problems and disorders been treated throughout the ages?

In the past, it was assumed that psychological disorders represented possession due to witchcraft or divine retribution, and cruel methods such as exorcism were used to try to rid the person of evil spirits. Asylums were the first institutions for people with psychological disorders, and eventually metal hospitals and the community metal health movement came into being.

Dopamine

Major tranquilizers that belong to the chemical class of phenothiazines are thought to work by blocking the action of the neurotransmitter ________.

Evidence-based practices

Method of therapy that has been shown effective in experiments in which participants are assigned at random to the treatment under investigation or to another treatment or placebo and in which the methods being tested are clearly outlined.

How do modern psychodynamic approaches differ from traditional psychoanalysis?

Modern approaches are briefer and more directive, and the therapist and client usually sit face-to-face.

About as

Most analyses of Alcoholics Anonymous find it ______ effective than other forms of treatment of alcoholism.

What is Fritz Perls' method of Gestalt therapy?

Perls' highly directive method aims to help people integrate conflicting parts of their personality. He tried to make clients aware of conflict, and he encouraged them to accept its reality and make choices despite fear.

What is psychotherapy?

Psychotherapy is a systematic interaction between a therapist and a client that apple psychological principles to affect the client's thoughts, feelings, and/or behavior to help the client overcome psychological disorders, adjust to problems in living, or develop as an individual.

Psychological

Psychotherapy is a systematic interaction between a therapist and a client that applies ______ principles to influence clients' thoughts, feelings, and/or behavior.

Transference

Responding to one person (such as a spouse or the psychoanalyst) in a way that is similar to the way one responded to another person (such as a parent) in childhood.

Decreased

Since the 1950s, the population of mental hospitals in the United States has _______.

Meta

Smith and Glass used the method of _______-analysis to analyze the results of dozens of outcome studies of various types of therapies.

Psychosurgery

Surgery intended to promote psychological changes or to relieve disordered behavior.

Behavior therapy

Systematic application of the principles of learning to the direct modification of a client's problem behaviors.

Prefrontal

The best-known psychosurgery technique is the _____ lobotomy.

Free

The chief psychoanalytic method is ______ association.

How do psychoanalysts conduct a traditional Freudian psychoanalysis?

The goals of psychoanalysis are to provide self-insight, encourage the spilling forth (catharsis) of psychic energy, and replace defensive behavior with coping behavior. The main method is free association, but dream analysis and interpretations are used as well. For example, a psychoanalyst may help clients gain insight into the ways they are transferring feelings toward their parents onto a spouse or even onto the analyst.

Prefrontal lobotomy

The severing or destruction of a section of the frontal lobe of the brain.

Biofeedback training (BFT)

The systematic feeding back to an organism information about a bodily function so that the organism can gain control of that function.

Resistance

The tendency to block the free expression of impulses and primitive ideas—a reflection of the defense mechanism of repression.

Interdependence

There may be a conflict between the traditional Latino and Latina American value of _______ in the family and the typical European American belief of independence.

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)

Treatment of disorders like major depression by passing an electric current (that causes a convulsion) through the head.

Systematic desensitization

Wolpe's behavioral fear-reduction technique in which a hierarchy of fear-evoking stimuli is presented while the person remains relaxed.

Minor

______ tranquilizers are usually prescribed for people who complain of anxiety or tension.

Major

_______ tranquilizers are used to reduce agitation, delusions, and hallucinations.

Cognitive, cognitive-behavioral

________ therapists focus on the beliefs, attitudes, and automatic thoughts that create and compound their clients' problems.

Operant

_________ conditioning methods reinforce desired responses and extinguish undesired responses.

Selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)

_________ have been used to treat panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, and eating disorders.

Humanistic

_________ therapies focus on clients' subjective, conscious experience.

Aversive

__________ conditioning associates undesired behavior with painful stimuli to decrease the frequency of the behavior.