Barrons

Treatment of Psychological Disorders

Mackenzie Furnari
3rd hour
1. History
a. Evil Spirits
i. The mentally ill were seen as possessed
ii. Trephining
1. an early form of treatment that was supposed to let the
spirits escape
2. making holes in the skull
b. Middle Ages
i. Hippocrates (Greece 500 B.C.) and Galen (Rome 200 A.D.)
thought that mental illness had biological roots
1. Europeans still returned to belief in demon possession
2. mentally ill persecuted
c. Enlightenment
i. Philippe Pinel (France) and Dorothea Dix (U.S.)
1. fought for humane treatment of the mentally ill
2. helped the development of kinder institutions
d. Deinstitutionalization
i. 1950s
1. development of drugs for the mentally ill
2. many people were released from mental institutions
ii. intended to save money and benefit patients

iii. many were unable to care for themselves

e. Preventative Efforts
i. Primary prevention
1. attempt to reduce the incidence of societal problems that
give rise to mental health issues
ii. Secondary prevention
1. working with people at risk for developing specific
problems
iii. Tertiary prevention
1. aim to keep peoples mental health issues from becoming
more severe
2. Types of Therapy
a. Overview
i. Psychotherapy
1. psychoanalytic, humanistic, behavioral, and cognitive
psychologists
ii. Somatic treatments
1. biomedical
2. ex. drugs
iii. Patients vs. clients
1. patients go to
a. biomedical psychologists, psychoanalysts
2. clients go to
a. other therapists
b. Psychoanalytic Theories
i. Psychoanalysis

1. a therapeutic technique developed by Freud

2. focuses on identifying the underlying causes of a problem
ii. Other therapies lead to symptom substitution
1. after treated for one disorder, a new psychological problem
arises
iii. Hypnosis
1. patients are less likely to repress thoughts
iv. Free association
1. say whatever comes to mind without thinking
2. supposed to elude the egos defenses
v. Dream analysis
1. patients asked to describe their dreams
2. manifest content
a. what the patient reports
3. latent content
a. the interpreted underlying meaning
vi. Resistance
1. protecting yourself from the painful process of
psychoanalysis
2. ex. disagreeing with your therapists interpretations
vii. Transference
1. patients redirect strong emotions felt towards others with
whom theyve had a troubling relationship onto the
therapist
viii. Insight therapies
1. highlight the importance of the patient gaining an

understanding of his problems

c. Humanistic Therapies
i. Strive to self-actualize
ii. Beliefs
1. people are innately good
2. people have free will
a. determinism- opposite
iii. Client/Person-centered therapy
1. therapist must provide unconditional positive regard
2. non-directive
a. therapists dont tell clients what to do
b. help clients choose course of action
c. active listening
iv. Gestalt therapy
1. clients encouraged to get in touch with whole selves
2. stress importance of present
3. integrate actions, feelings, thoughts into a whole
v. Existential therapies
1. focus on helping clients achieve a subjectively meaningful
perception of their lives
d. Behavioral Therapies
i. Counterconditioning
1. Mary Cover Jones
2. an unpleasant conditioned response is replaced with a
pleasant one

ii. Systematic desensitization

1. Joseph Wolpe
2. teach the client to eliminate anxiety through relaxation
3. construct anxiety hierarchy
a. a rank-ordered list of what the clients fears, from
least to most
4. in vivo desensitization
a. the client confronts feared objects or situations
5. covert desensitization
a. client imagines the feared stimuli
6. climb the hierarchy, using counterconditioning to replace
fear with relaxation
iii. Flooding
1. the client addresses the most frightening scenario first
iv. Modeling
1. client watches someone else interact with feared object
2. client reenacts what he saw
v. Aversive conditioning
1. pairs a habit the client wants to break with an unpleasant
stimulus
vi. Operant conditioning
1. uses rewards and punishments to modify behavior
2. ex. token economy
e. Cognitive Therapies
i. Concentrate on changing unhealthy thought patterns

ii. Cognitive therapy

1. most often used to treat depression
2. aims to engage clients in pursuits that will bring them
success
3. make beliefs about cognitive triad more positive
4. Aaron Beck
f. Cognitive Behavioral Therapies (CBTs)
i. Rational emotive behavior therapy
1. REBT/RET
2. Albert Ellis
3. goals
a. show client that his failure is unlikely
b. show that even if client does fail, it wouldnt be a
big deal
c. expose and confront the clients dysfunctional
thoughts
g. Group Therapy
i. Family therapy
ii. Meeting with a number of people experiencing similar difficulties
iii. Self-help groups
1. dont involve a therapist
h. Somatic Therapies
i. Therapies that produce bodily changes
ii. Psychopharmacology/ Chemotherapy
1. drug therapy

2. more likely to be used for severe disorders

a. especially schizophrenia
iii. Antipsychotic drugs
1. block receptor sites for dopamine
2. used for schizophrenia
3. ex. Thorazine, Haldol
4. side effect
a. tardive dyskinesia (muscle tremors)
iv. Chemotherapy
1. used for mood disorders
2. increase serotonin activity
3. lithium- for manic phase of BPD
4. for unipolar depression:
a. tricyclic antidepressants
b. monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibitors
c. serotonin-reuptake-inhibitor drugs
v. Barbiturates
1. antianxiety drugs
2. types
a. Miltown
b. benzodiazepines
3. ex. xanax, valium
vi. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)
1. bilateral

a. electric current passed through both brain

hemispheres
2. unilateral
a. electrical current through one hemisphere
3. more effective
4. worse side effects
a. memory loss
b. brief seizure
c. brief loss of consciousness
5. used for depression when other methods fail
6. less common than chemotherapy
vii. Psychosurgery
1. rarest treatment
2. last resort
3. purposeful destruction of part of the brain to alter a
persons behavior
4. prefrontal lobotomy
a. cutting the main neurons leading to the frontal lobe
b. calms behavior
c. makes you a vegetable
3. Kinds of Therapists
a. Psychiatrists
i. Can prescribe meds
ii. Less trained in psychotherapy
b. Clinical Psychologists

i. earn Ph.D.s that require at least 4 years of study

c. Counseling Psychologists
i. Graduate degree in psychology
ii. Deal with less severe problems
d. Psychoanalysts
i. Trained in Freudian methods
4. Dont need medical degree