PSYC 111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, Interpersonal Psychotherapy, Electroconvulsive Therapy
5 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Introduction to Therapy and the Psychological Therapies
Treating Psychological Disorders
How do Psychotherapy and Biomedical Therapies Differ?
● Reformers Philippe Pinel (1745–1826) and Dorothea Dix (1802–1887) pushed for
gentler, more humane treatments and for constructing mental hospitals
●Since the 1950s, the introduction of effective drug therapies and community-based
treatment programs have emptied most of those hospitals
●Modern Western therapies can be classified into two main categories:
○Psychotherapy
■Treatment involving psychological techniques
■Consists of interactions between a trained therapist and someone seeking
to overcome psychological difficulties or achieve personal growth
●The therapist may seek to uncover hidden meaning from a client’s
early relationships, to encourage the client to adopt new ways of
thinking, or to replace old behaviors with new ones
■Each option of psychotherapy is built on one or more of psychology’s
major theories:
●Psychodynamic, humanistic, behavioral, and cognitive
■Some psychologists consider psychotherapy to be a biological treatment,
because changing the way we think and behave can prompt physical
changes in the brain
●Effective psychotherapy is a brain-changing experience
○Biomedical Therapy
■Prescribed medications or procedures that act directly on the person’s
physiology
●Ex: A person with severe depression, as we will see, may receive
antidepressants, electroconvulsive shock therapy (ECT), or
deep-brain stimulation.
○Psychotherapy and medication are often combined
■Many psychotherapists describe themselves as taking an eclectic approach
●An approach to psychotherapy that uses techniques from various
forms of therapy
Psychoanalysis and Psychodynamic Theories
Goals
●The first major psychological therapy was Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis
○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.
○Helped form the foundation for treating psychological disorders, partly by
influencing modern therapists working from the psychodynamic perspective
●Freud believed that in therapy, people could achieve healthier, less anxious living by
releasing the energy they had previously devoted to id-ego-superego conflicts
○He assumed that we do not fully know ourselves
■There are threatening things that we seem to want not to know—that we
disavow or deny
●Freud’s therapy aimed to bring patients’ repressed or disowned feelings into conscious
awareness
○By helping them reclaim their unconscious thoughts and feelings, and by giving
them insight into the origins of their disorders, he aimed to help them reduce
growth-impeding inner conflict
Techniques
●Psychoanalytic theory emphasizes the power of childhood experiences to mold the adult.
○It aims to unearth one’s past in the hope of unmasking the present.
○After discarding hypnosis, Freud turned to free association.
●Editing your thoughts before you speak is what analysts refer to as resistance
○In psychoanalysis, the blocking from consciousness of anxiety-laden material
○The analyst will note your resistances and then provide insight into their meaning.
■If offered at the right moment, this interpretation may illuminate the
underlying wishes, feelings, and conflicts you are avoiding.
■The analyst may also offer an explanation of how this resistance fits with
other pieces of your psychological puzzle, including those based on
analysis of your dream content
●Over many sessions, relationship patterns surface in your interaction with your therapist.
○You may experience strong positive or negative feelings for your analyst
○You can be transferring feelings (ex: feelings of dependency or mingled love and
anger) that you experienced in earlier relationships with family members or others
■By exposing such feelings, you may gain insight into your current
relationships
●Few therapists offer traditional psychoanalysis as it is not supported by scientific research
Psychodynamic Therapy
●Therapy deriving from the psychoanalytic tradition
○Views individuals as responding to unconscious forces and childhood
experiences, and seeks to enhance self-insight
●Tries to help people understand their current symptom
○They focus on themes across important relationships, including childhood
experiences and the therapist relationship
●These sessions take place once or twice a week (rather than several times per week), and
often for only a few weeks or months.
●Patients gain perspective by exploring defended-against thoughts and feelings
○Ex: With patients who are estranged from themselves, therapists using
psychodynamic techniques “are in a position to introduce them to themselves.
■We can restore their awareness of their own wishes and feelings, and their
awareness, as well, of their reactions against those wishes and feelings
●Psychodynamic therapists may also help reveal past relationship troubles as the origin of
current difficulties
●Interpersonal psychotherapy, a brief (12- to 16-session) variation of psychodynamic
therapy, has effectively treated depression
○Although interpersonal psychotherapy aims to help people gain insight into the
roots of their difficulties, its goal is symptom relief in the here and now.
○Rather than focusing mostly on undoing past hurts and offering interpretations,
the therapist concentrates primarily on current relationships and on helping people
improve their relationship skills.
Humanistic Therapies
Basic Themes of Humanistic Therapy
●The humanistic perspective emphasizes people’s inherent potential for self-fulfillment
●Like psychodynamic therapies, humanistic therapies have attempted to reduce
growth-impeding inner conflicts by providing clients with new insights
○Psychodynamic and humanistic therapies are often referred to as insight therapies
■A variety of therapies that aim to improve psychological functioning by
increasing a person’s awareness of underlying motives and defenses
●But humanistic therapies differ from psychoanalytic therapies in many other ways
○Humanistic therapists aim to boost people’s self-fulfillment by helping them grow
in self-awareness and self-acceptance.
○Promoting this growth, not curing illness, is the therapy focus.
■Thus, those in therapy became “clients” or just “persons” rather than
“patients” (a change many other therapists have adopted).
Document Summary
Reformers philippe pinel (1745 1826) and dorothea dix (1802 1887) pushed for gentler, more humane treatments and for constructing mental hospitals. Since the 1950s, the introduction of effective drug therapies and community-based treatment programs have emptied most of those hospitals. Modern western therapies can be classified into two main categories: Consists of interactions between a trained therapist and someone seeking to overcome psychological difficulties or achieve personal growth. The therapist may seek to uncover hidden meaning from a client"s early relationships, to encourage the client to adopt new ways of thinking, or to replace old behaviors with new ones. Each option of psychotherapy is built on one or more of psychology"s major theories: Some psychologists consider psychotherapy to be a biological treatment, because changing the way we think and behave can prompt physical changes in the brain. Prescribed medi cations or procedures that act directly on the person"s physiology.
