PSYCHOTHERAPIES

Psychoanalysis 

Sigmund Freud’s therapeutic technique. Freud believed the patient’s free associations, resistances, dreams, and transferences—and the therapist’s interpretations of them— released previously repressed feelings, allowing the patient to gain self - insight.

Resistance in psychoanalysis, the blocking from consciousness of anxiety- laden material.

Interpretation in psychoanalysis, the analyst’s noting supposed dream meanings, resistances, and other significant behaviors and events in order to promote insight.

Transference in psychoanalysis, the patient’s transfer to the analyst of emotions linked with other relationships (such as love or hatred for a parent).

Humanistic Therapies

·         Humanistic therapists aim to boost people’s self-fulfillment by helping them grow in selfawareness and self-acceptance.

·         Promoting this growth, not curing illness, is the focus of therapy. Thus, those in therapy became “clients” or just “persons” rather than “patients” (a change many other therapists have adopted).

·         The path to growth is taking immediate responsibility for one’s feelings and actions, rather than uncovering hidden determinants.

·         Conscious thoughts are more important than the unconscious.

·         The present and future are more important than the past. The goal is to explore feelings as they occur, rather than achieve insights into the childhood origins of the feelings.

Carl Rogers (1902–1987) developed the widely used humanistic technique he called client - centered therapy, which focuses on the person’s conscious self - perceptions. In this nondirective therapy, the therapist listens, without judging or interpreting, and seeks to refrain from directing the client toward certain insights. Believing that most people possess the resources for growth, Rogers (1961, 1980) encouraged therapists to exhibit genuineness, acceptance, and empathy. When therapists drop their facades and genuinely express their true feelings, when they enable their clients to feel unconditionally accepted, and when they empathically sense and reflect their clients’ feelings, the clients may deepen their self - understanding and self- acceptance.

“Hearing” refers to Rogers’ technique of active listening—echoing, restating, and seeking clarification of what the person expresses (verbally or nonverbally) and acknowledging the expressed feelings.

Given a nonjudgmental, grace - filled environment that provides unconditional positive regard, people may accept even their worst traits and feel valued and whole. If you want to listen more actively in your own relationships, three Rogerian hints may help:

1. Paraphrase. Rather than saying “I know how you feel,” check your understandings by summarizing the person’s words in your own words.

2. Invite clarification. “What might be an example of that?” may encourage the person to say more.

3. Reflect feelings. “It sounds frustrating” might mirror what you’re sensing from the person’s body language and intensity.

Classical Conditioning Techniques

Exposure therapies

Which expose people to what they normally avoid or escape (behaviors that get reinforced by reduced anxiety). Exposure therapies have them face their fear, and thus to overcome their fear of the fear response itself. As people can habituate to the sound of a train passing their new apartment, so, with repeated exposure, can they become less anxiously responsive to things that once petrified them.

One widely used exposure therapy is systematic desensitization. Wolpe assumed, as did Jones, that you cannot be simultaneously anxious and relaxed. Therefore, if you can repeatedly relax when facing anxiety - provoking stimuli, you can gradually eliminate your anxiety. The trick is to proceed gradually. Let’s see how this might work with a common phobia. Imagine yourself afraid of public speaking. A behavior therapist might first ask for your help in constructing a hierarchy of anxiety- triggering speaking situations. Yours might range from mildly anxiety - provoking situations, perhaps speaking up in a small group of friends, to panic - provoking situations, such as having to address a large audience.

Next, using progressive relaxation, the therapist would train you to relax one muscle group after another, until you achieve a blissful state of complete relaxation and comfort. Then the therapist would ask you to imagine, with your eyes closed, a mildly anxiety - arousing situation: You are having coffee with a group of friends and are trying to decide whether to speak up. If imagining the scene causes you to feel any anxiety, you would signal your tension by raising your finger, and the therapist would instruct you to switch off the mental image and go back to deep relaxation. This imagined scene is repeatedly paired with relaxation until you feel no trace of anxiety.

The therapist would progress up the constructed anxiety hierarchy, using the relaxed state to desensitize you to each imagined situation. After several sessions, you move to actual situations and practice what you had only imagined before, beginning with relatively easy tasks and gradually moving to more anxiety - filled ones. Conquering your anxiety in an actual situation, not just in your imagination, raises your self – confidence. Eventually, you may even become a confident public speaker.

Aversive Conditioning 

In systematic desensitization, the goal is substituting a positive (relaxed) response for a negative (fearful) response to a harmless stimulus. In aversive conditioning, the goal is substituting a negative (aversive) response for a positive response to a harmful stimulus

(such as alcohol). Thus, aversive conditioning is the reverse of systematic desensitization—it seeks to condition an aversion to something the person should avoid.

The procedure is simple: It associates the unwanted behavior with unpleasant feelings. To treat nail biting, one can paint the fingernails with a nasty - tasting nail polish. To treat alcohol dependence, an aversion therapist offers the client appealing drinks laced with a drug that produces severe vomiting. By linking alcohol with violent vomiting the therapist seeks to transform the person’s reaction to alcohol from positive to negative.

Cognitive Therapies

Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy 

According to Albert Ellis (1962, 1987, 1993), the creator of rational-emotive behavior therapy (REBT), many problems arise from irrational thinking. For example, he described a disturbed woman and suggested how therapy might challenge her illogical, self-defeating assumptions. Change people’s thinking by revealing the “absurdity” of their self-defeating ideas, the tart-tongued Ellis believed, and you will change their self-defeating feelings and enable healthier behaviors.

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive - behavioral therapy, a widely practiced integrative therapy, aims not only to alter the way people think (cognitive therapy), but also to alter the way they act (behavior therapy). It seeks to make people aware of their irrational negative thinking, to replace it with new ways of thinking, and to practice the more positive approach in everyday settings. Behavioral change is typically addressed first, followed by sessions on cognitive change; the therapy concludes with a focus on maintaining both and preventing relapses.