therapies
TRANSCRIPT
Therapies
Dr. Irene Karayianni
Psychotherapy
A form of therapy in which a trained professional uses methods based on
psychological theories to help a person with psychological problems.
Does not include medical treatment.
Unique relationship, highly personal information.
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Ethical standards
• The therapist must not use intense relationship to exploit the client in
any way.
• Goals of treatment must be of the best interest of the client and
society, and must be fully understood by the client.
• Therapists must only treat problems that they are qualified to treat.
Else, refer client to someone else.
• Carefully consider alternative treatment methods.
• Evaluate effectiveness of treatment. Find meaningful measures.
• Confidentiality (except court matters, or if clients are in immediate
danger to harm themselves or others)
• Therapists must respect differences in gender, ethnicity etc, and not
sway clients to their own values.
Psychoanalysis
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Psychoanalysis
• Developed by Freud
• Based on his belief that the root of all psychological problems is
unconscious conflicts among the id, the ego and the superego.
• Conflicts that get out of hand
• Conflicts must be brought to the conscious if they are to be resolved.
• Not easy (the id is completely unconscious)
• Use special therapy methods, to relax the ego guard
• The id is revealed in disguise
• Psychoanalyst must
– Create conditions to relax censorship of ego
– Interpret disguised symbolic revelations of unconscious mind to patient
Technique: free association
• Developed by Freud
• Talk about whatever comes to mind, allowing contents of unconscious
to slip past the censorship of the ego.
• No thought or feeling is withheld
• Easier for patient to lie on couch, facing the ceiling
• Psychoanalyst out of sight
• As if patients are talking to themselves
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Technique: dream interpretation
• Developed by Freud
• The symbols in the obvious content of dreams that are recalled, are
interpreted to reveal the hidden content (manifest / latent)
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Technique: interpretation of resistance
• Developed by Freud
• He placed emphasis on resistance in therapy
• Resistance = any form of opposition to the process of psychoanalysis
• Resistance means a conflict is discovered and the patient doesn’t want
to think about it
• Can occur in two ways
– Vague – missing appointments, question value of psychoanalysis
– Specific – resistance to the interpretations of the therapist
Technique: interpretation of transference
• Patients feel and act towards therapists in ways that resemble how they
feel and act toward other significant adults (e.g. parent, eployer)
• Another source of valuable information: relationship between therapist
and client
• Intense relationship
• E.g. argue for fees, asking for reassurance
Catharsis
• In addition to symbolic revelations, Psychoanalysis allows release of
emotions
• Release of emotional energy related to unconscious conflicts
Interpersonal psychotherapy for depression
• Interpersonal psychotherapy is based on neo-Freudian theories of
Sullivan
• Focuses on accurate definition and communication of feelings and the
improvement of current social relationships
• Focuses on the “here and now”
• Usually completed in 12-16 weeks
• Originally developed to treat depression. 4 kinds of problems that cause
depression
– Grief over the loss of a relationship (death, divorce)
– Conflicts with people that are significant to us
– Stressful life events, or events threatening self esteem
– Lack of social skills for establishing healthy relationships
Interpersonal psychotherapy for depression
• IPT therapists try to reach 7 goals to treat depression
• Therapist understands my feelings and considers them important
• Understand how my feelings are related to what’s going on in my life,
to my current relationships (emotional baggage)
• Learn to express my feelings in constructive ways
• Identify unhealthy relationships that can’t be fixed, end them, move on
to healthier ones
• Master new roles created in life
• Improve my skills for creating and maintaining healthy relationships
• Develop optimistic focus on current opportunities for change, instead of
the past
Humanistic psychotherapy
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