Clinical Therapy and Issues

I. Psychotherapy: treatment of psychological disorders by methods that include an ongoing relationship between a therapist and a client.

A. Psychoanalysis

1) Free Association: the client thinks about a problem and then says everything that comes to mind related to it.

2) Transference: the client’s experience of feelings previously associated with a parent or other important figure are “transferred” to the therapist.

3) Resistance: a continued repression that interferes withtherapy.

B. Behavior Therapy: begins with specific behavioral goals and then helps the client learn how to achieve those goals.

2) Social-Learning Therapy: clients learn how to overcomecertain behavioral problems by observing and imitating thebehaviors of other people without those behavioral problems.

1) Aversion Therapy: an attractive stimulus is paired with anoxious stimulus in order to elicit a negative reaction to thetarget stimulus.

C. Cognitive Therapy: seeks to improve people’s functioning by changing their thoughts and beliefs.

1) Rational-Emotive Therapy: assumes that thoughtsprecede emotions, and that unpleasant feelings are a resultof irrational thoughts.

G. Family Systems Therapy: an individual’s problems arise in a family setting and therefore must be dealt with by working to improve family relationships and communication.

H. Group Therapy: involves the treatment of many clients all at once.

I. Self-Help Groups: same as group therapy but without a therapist.

D. Cognitive-Behavior Therapy: a hybrid of cognitive and behavior therapy.

E. Humanistic Therapy I: Person-Centered Therapy: the therapist listens to the client with total acceptance & unconditional positive regard.

F. Humanistic Therapy II: Gestalt Therapy: the therapist has people act out unfulfilled fantasies or dreams in a safe environment to achieve satisfaction regarding those needs.

III. Social and Legal Aspects of Treatment

A. Deinstitutionalization: the trend over the second part of the twentieth century of removing patients from mental hospitals.

B. Involuntary Commitment and Treatment

C. The Duty to Protect

1) Tarasoff Case: established that a therapist who knows thata client has harmful intent towards an identified person orpersons has a duty to break confidentiality with the client toprotect the endangered person.

II. How effective is psychotherapy?

IV. Preventing Mental Illness

A. Community Psychologists: focus on the needs of groups rather than individuals and look at various ways to circumvent mental illness or lessen its damaging effects.

1) Prevention: methods aimed at stopping mental illnessbefore it begins.

2) Intervention: identifying a disorder in its early stages andrelieving it.

3) Maintenance: taking steps to prevent an illness frombecoming more serious.

D. The Insanity Defense

1) The M’Naghten Rule: in order to be judged insane at thetime of a crime, a person must be so disordered that theycannot understand what they are doing.