Therapy

This week we talked a lot about therapy. The different types of therapy include:

Psychoanalysis: It's based on the Freudian belief that our behaviors are driven by unconscious drive and forces. They believe that anxiety is a conflict between the id and the supergo. The goal of this form of therapy is to try and bring repressed memories to the surface. The therapy is very costly and involves the therapist staying out of sight and using the practice of free association (saying whatever comes to mind continuously). The therapist uses the resistance (pausing between words) to find the things that bring shame. What often happens is transference (they transfer feelings about something to the therapist). They also perform dream analysis - the idea is that their dreams give access to the patient's unconscious.

Psychodynamic approach: This form of therapy is face-to-face and is what we are thinking of when we classically think of therapy. They don't think that it's all about uncovering repressed memories. They focus on uncovering the things that affected the past, they want to talk about it. They realize that the past impacts the present and the goal is to solve the present problems by looking at the past. They focus on interpersonal psychotherapy - they're not going to delve into the patient's childhood, they're going to look at the current relationships.

Humanistic approach: Humanism focuses on the ideas of self-actualization, being positive, being growth-oriented, the fact that people are good, and the merging of the perceived self and the ideal self. The humanistic approach thinks that by the therapist disclosing something about themselves, they can help the patient. They practice insight therapy - trying to give advise; and client-centered therapy - the focus is on the client and the present, they want to elicit ideas from the client. They use active listening, where they mirror back what the client is saying and always have unconditional positive regard - they always find the good in people.

Behavioral therapy: Behaviorists define behavior as an observable behavior. The goal is to change behavior - not looking into the past. They use classical and operant conditioning to achieve this. Through classical conditioning, they use things like exposure therapy (continuous exposure to the problem), to systematically desensitize the patient to the problem. The goal is to repeatedly pair the neutral stimulus with progressive relaxation and it will eventually extinguish the response. Aversive conditioning replaces the behavior by pairing it with something negative. Operant conditioning reinforces or punishes to change the behavior. By using a token economy (using a prize to act as money) therapists can reinforce behavior.

Cognitive therapy: Cognitive therapy will only work if depression comes from a cognitive approach. Cognitive therapy aims to look at a person's thought pattern, and wants to change that pattern.

Cognitive-behavior therapy: This approach combines behavioral and cognitive therapy. Their goal is to address thoughts, emotions, and behaviors -- because they all influence your life.

Group and family therapy: this type of therapy is of the opinion that an individual might gain more insight by seeing what others say. They think that sometimes there are issues that affect an entire group or a family, and can be helped if discussed together.

Ecclectic approach: This approach takes the opinion 'one approach isn't good.' The more you use the better! The best way to solve a problem is to pull from a variety of sources.


I don't know which I think is best. I think that it really depends on the situation.. Maybe that would mean I like the ecclectic approach best?? Which approach do you think is most effective?