Transcript Social Psychology: Personal Perspectives (Chapter 14)

Continuing and Distance Education
Introductory Psychology 1023
Lecture 7: Therapy
Reading: Chapter 15
Psychotropic drug therapies
• Antipsychotic drugs: Neuroleptics
– Cloropromazine: Block’s dopamine reuptake
– Reduce positive symptoms of schizophrenia
• Antidepressant drugs: MAO Inhibitors and SSRI
tricylics (e.g., Prozac)
– increase serotonin & norepinephrine in synapse
• Barbituates and Benzodiazepines
– valium, librium: relax muscles and tranquilize
– barbituates: CNS depressant, addictive, lethal
• Concerns: Placebo effect, relapse & dropout,
dosage & side effects, latency & long term effects
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)
in 1940s:
• 150 volts run through the head for 1-2
seconds
– Can lead to memory loss, broken bones, still
used as “last resort” for depression
– Today the patient is usually placed under
general anesthesia, paralysed with drugs,
monitored and assisted with breathing.
Psychodynamic therapy
approaches
• Patients improve once they become
conscious of ego-threatening material
• Free association: Client says whatever
comes to mind; Dream analysis
• Resistance is an impediment to progress
• Transference of feelings from significant
others to therapist; Countertransference
Cognitive-Behavioral
Approaches
• Clients change their behavior by changing their
cognitions
• Goal: change how people think about things
• Rational-emotive behavior therapy
– Cognition precedes emotion and irrational thoughts
therefore cause emotional distress
– “I need to be a perfect student”
– Therapist needs to challenge irrational cognitions
Group therapy
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What group therapies are you aware of?
Example: Parenting group
Anger, Agoraphobia groups
Advantages: Less expensive, group
support, social pressure to change
• Disadvantages: Less intensive, conflicts
within group, side-tracking
• Focus on teaching skills or support
Behavior therapy
• Treatment of symptoms, objective
behaviors, scientific methods
– single subject designs
• Counterconditioning: stimulus response is
replaced by alternative response
– Aversion therapy: e.g., anta-abuse
– Systematic desensitization: Relaxation paired
with gradually more threatening images and
experiences, e.g., dog phobia, sex therapy
Behavior therapy (continued)
• Extinction procedures, Exposure treatment
– Flooding: Exposure to threatening stimuli, e.g., fear of
flying
– Implosion therapy: Imagine you are confronted with
very threatening stimuli
• Operant conditioning
– token economy: earned tokens based on a system of
rewards and punishers
– behavioral contract: e.g., gain weight to earn privilege
• Specific Skills Training
– Social skill, parenting programs, anger management
Treatment Effectiveness
• Short-term treatment for common problems is usually
sufficient
• Psychotherapy better than doing nothing
• Motivation, therapeutic alliance, and (lack of) severity
are related to effectiveness
• Therapy can be harmful if
– therapist is out of realm of competence
– has biases against person
– is behaving unethically (e.g., sexual intimacies with clients
used to be common, now seen as a most serious breech of
professional responsibility)
– Problems are induced such as false memories for trauma
Self-help
• Bibliotherapy: Self-help books from the
bookstore
• Surf the net: You can join “chat lines” of
people with similar problems
• Videotapes: How to parent, how to
communicate, how to be assertive are at
“Blockbuster”
• Lifestyle: General health and fitness
improves mental health