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What is psychotherapy? What is a psychological intervention?
CONTENTS
- Psychotherapy
- The therapeutic relationship
- Psychotherapy practices
- Behavior therapy
PSYCHOTHERAPY
Psychological psychology is defined as the “ informed and intentional application of clinical methods and interpersonal strategies derived from established psychological principles with the purpose of helping people to modify their behavior, cognitions, emotions and/or other personal characteristics in the directions that participants consider desirable ” (Norcross et al., 2011).
- Informed: the patient is not lectured, but is informed about what is going on.
- Intentional: the psychologist has a plan. The plan is developed for the case.
Psychotherapy is not only the application of techniques, but it also requires a therapeutic relationship.
- Very personal (intimate) and very professional
- Kind relationship but working, gets things done.
- Different roles, but equally important.
- Therapist, expert in psychopathology
- Patient, expert in themselves.
THE THERAPEUTIC RELATIONSHIP
Trust is instilled
- The psychologist must be consistent, congruent, and reliable.
- The psychologist must be knowledgeable.
- The patient should trust us.
- By consistent, we mean that the psychologist must know their role.
e.g., the patient might be going through financial complications. The psychologist must not give them a $20 bill. It might help the patient, but it is not the psychologist’s role. Genuineness
- The psychologist must be comfortable with themself.
- No artificial behavior; if the patient notices that the psychologist is artificial, they will not trust them; they
might feel challenged by them.
- The psychologist must behave appropriately (appropriate self-disclosure).
- Empathy (not sympathy)
- Perceive the person’s emotions.
- Do not feel pity (it is not respectful).
- Communicate and understand.
- Positive acceptance of the person (not necessarily their behavior)
- Do not take the client’s reactions personally.
- Do not make judgements.
- Importance of self-awareness and self care.
- Take care of yourself & your own mental health.
- Be aware of your own limitations
PSYCHOTHERAPY PRACTICES
The conceptual framework surrounding psychotherapy is extensive and delimiting. It is extremely difficult due to the large number of clinical practices. Throughout history, psychotherapy has been characterized by the development of many orientations that continue to grow exponentially today. Being the most common practices cognitive behavioral therapy, eclectic, psychodynamic, and behavioral therapy. Eclectic refers to the combined usage of different approaches.
directives and for the therapist to have confidence that the client is providing accurate information. In behavior therapy, a trusting relationship facilitates the treatment procedures. In contrast, in other forms of therapy, such as insight-oriented therapies, the trusting relationship itself is the primary treatment procedure.
- Does behavior therapy deal with feelings (such as depression, anxiety or anger)?
Feelings are covert behaviors that constitute one of the most frequently treated types of problems. Feelings may be treated directly (as in exposure therapy for anxiety) and indirectly (as in shaping increasingly more active behaviors for depression).
- How important is verbal interchange between the professional and the client?
Verbal interchange is usually the major means by which the client and the behavior therapist communicate. However, behavior therapy is an action-oriented therapy that involves much more than just talking about the client’s problems.
- How necessary is the client’s operation?
Psychotherapy, of any variety, is highly unlikely to be effective without the client’s cooperation. Further, behavior therapy generally involves the active participation of clients in their therapy, so their cooperation is critical.
- How many sessions does behavior therapy require?
Behavior therapy (BT) usually brings about changes in problem behaviors in considerably fewer therapy sessions than many other forms of psychotherapy (especially verbal, insight-oriented therapies) but generally not in as few as five sessions.
- Is behavioral therapy applicable for the change of mental processes such as thoughts?
Cognitive-behavioral therapy procedures directly deal with clients’ mental processes or cognitions that are either maintaining overt problem behaviors or are themselves covert problem behaviors.
- For which age group is positive reinforcement more effective?
Reinforcement procedures are as effective with adults as with children, although many of the specific, generalized reinforcers are different for children and adults.
- The myth of behavioral therapy and painful or aversive treatments
Few BT procedures involve painful or aversive treatments. Further, aversive procedures are used in a small minority of cases, usually after non-aversive procedures have been tried and failed. Moreover, because aversive procedures are deceleration therapies, they might be supplemented with acceleration therapies, which comprise most behavior therapy procedures.
- Does behavior therapy only deal with simple problems?
Behavior therapy (BT) treats a wide array of complex human problems. However, the focus of behavior therapy is on target behaviors, which are relatively simple aspects of (complex) problem behaviors.
- Who determines the goal of the therapy?
In BT, clients decide on their goals for therapy. However, because clients often do not have well- defined goals, behavior therapists may have to help clients generate realistic and clearly delineated goals for therapy.
- Who is primarily responsible for the success of the therapy?
Clients in BT are actively involved in their treatment, especially in terms of carrying out vital homework assignments. Clearly, then, clients share responsibility with their therapists for the success of treatment.
- Can it be, that because behavioral therapy does not treat the underlying cause, other problems
might arouse (as they had not been treated)? This myth is the basis for the notion of symptom substitution and is based on faulty premises. BT does not directly treat the symptoms (maladaptive behaviors) of a disorder, but rather it directly treats the maintaining conditions of the symptoms. Because the maintaining conditions are the cause of the symptoms, there is no reason to believe that additional symptoms will develop.
