Chapter 13 & 14 Therapies & Social Behaviors

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Chapter 13 14Therapies Social Behaviors
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What Is Psychotherapy?

• Any psychological technique used to facilitate
  positive changes in personality, behavior, or
  adjustment some types of psychotherapy
• Individual Involves only one client and one
  therapist
• Client Patient the one who participates in
  psychotherapy
• Rogers used client to equalize therapist-client
  relationship and de-emphasize doctor-patient
  concept
• Group Several clients participate at the same
  time

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More Types of Psychotherapy

• Directive Therapist provides strong guidance
• Insight Goal is for clients to gain deeper
  understanding of their thoughts, emotions, and
  behaviors
• Time-Limited Any therapy that limits number of
  sessions
• Partial response to managed care and to
  ever-increasing caseloads
• Caseload Number of clients a therapist actively
  sees

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Family Therapy

• Family Therapy All family members work as a
  group to resolve the problems of each family
  member
• Tends to be brief and focuses on specific
  problems (e.g., specific fights)

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Origins of Therapy

• Trepanning For primitive therapists, refers to
  boring, chipping, or bashing holes into a
  patients head for modern usage, refers to any
  surgical procedure in which a hole is bored into
  the skull
• In primitive times it was unlikely the patient
  would survive this may have been a goal
• Goal presumably to relieve pressure or rid the
  person of evil spirits

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Demonology

• Study of demons and people beset by spirits
• People were possessed, and they needed an
  exorcism to be cured
• Exorcism Practice of driving off an evil
  spirit still practiced today!

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Origins of Therapy (cont'd)

• Ergotism Psychotic-like symptoms that come from
  ergot poisoning
• Ergot is a natural source of LSD
• Ergot occurs with rye
• Phillippe Pinel French physician who initiated
  humane treatment of mental patients in 1793
• Created the first mental hospital

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Existential Therapy

• An insight therapy that focuses on problems of
  existence, such as meaning, choice, and
  responsibility emphasizes making difficult
  choices in life
• Therapy focuses on death, freedom, isolation, and
  meaninglessness
• Free Will Human ability to make choices
• You can choose to be the person you want to be
• Confrontation Clients are challenged to examine
  their values and choices

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Behavior Therapy

• Use of learning principles to make constructive
  changes in behavior
• Behavior Modification Using any classical or
  operant conditioning principles to directly
  change human behavior
• Deep insight is often not necessary
• Focus on the present cannot change the past, and
  no reason to alter that which has yet to occur

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Aversion Therapy

• Conditioned Aversion Learned dislike or negative
  emotional response to a stimulus
• Aversion Therapy Associate a strong aversion to
  an undesirable habit like smoking, overeating,
  drinking alcohol
• Response-Contingent Consequences Reinforcement,
  punishment, or other consequences that are
  applied only when a certain response is made
• Rapid Smoking Prolonged smoking at a rapid pace
• Designed to cause aversion to smoking

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Desensitization

• Systematic Desensitization Guided reduction in
  fear, anxiety, or aversion attained by
  approaching a feared stimulus gradually while
  maintaining relaxation
• Best used to treat phobias intense, unrealistic
  fear
• Model Live or filmed person who serves as an
  example for observational learning
• Vicarious Desensitization Reduction in fear that
  takes place secondhand when a client watches
  models perform the feared behavior
• Virtual Reality Exposure Presents computerized
  fear stimuli to patients in a controlled fashion

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Operant Conditioning

• Positive Reinforcement Responses that are
  followed by a reward tend to occur more
  frequently
• Nonreinforcement A response that is not followed
  by a reward will occur less frequently
• Extinction If response is NOT followed by reward
  after it has been repeated many times, it will go
  away
• Punishment If a response is followed by
  discomfort or an undesirable effect, the response
  will decrease/be suppressed (but not necessarily
  extinguished)

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Cognitive Therapy

• Therapy that helps clients change thinking
  patterns that lead to problematic behaviors or
  emotions
• Selective Perception Perceiving only certain
  stimuli in a larger group of possibilities
• Overgeneralization Allowing upsetting events to
  affect unrelated situations
• All-or-Nothing Thinking Seeing objects and
  events as absolutely right or wrong, good or bad,
  and so on
• Cognitive therapy is VERY effective in treating
  depression, shyness, and stress

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Key Features of Psychotherapy

• Therapeutic Alliance Caring relationship between
  the client and therapist work to solve
  clients problems
• Therapy offers a protected setting where
  emotional catharsis (release) can occur
• All the therapies offer some explanation or
  rationale for the clients suffering
• Provides clients with a new perspective about
  themselves or their situations and a chance to
  practice new behaviors

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Basic Counseling Skills

• Active listening
• Clarify the problem
• Focus on feelings
• Avoid giving advice
• Accept the clients frame of reference
• Reflect thoughts and feelings
• Silence Know when to use
• Questions
• Open Open-ended reply
• Closed Can be answered Yes or No
• Maintain confidentiality

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Medical (Somatic) Therapies

• Pharmacotherapy Use of drugs to alleviate
  emotional disturbance three classes
• Anxiolytics Like Valium produce relaxation or
  reduce anxiety
• Antidepressants Elevate mood and combat
  depression
• Antipsychotics Tranquilize and also reduce
  hallucinations and delusions in larger dosages

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Shock

• Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) 150 volt
  electric shock is passed through the brain for
  about one second, inducing a convulsion
• Based on belief that seizure alleviates
  depression by altering brain chemistry
• ECT Views
• - Causes memory loss in many patients
• Should only be used as a last resort

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Psychosurgery

• Any surgical alteration of the brain
• Prefrontal Lobotomy Frontal lobes in brain are
  surgically cut from other brain areas
• Supposed to calm people who did not respond to
  other forms of treatment
• Was not very successful
• Deep Lesioning Small target areas in the brain
  are destroyed by using an electrode

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Hospitalization

• Mental Hospitalization Involves placing a person
  in a protected, therapeutic environment staffed
  by mental health professionals
• Deinstitutionalization Reduced use of full-time
  commitment to mental institutions
• Half-way Houses Short-term group living
  facilities for individuals making the transition
  from an institution (mental hospital, prison,
  etc.) to independent living

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Community Mental Health Centers

• Offer many health services like prevention,
  education, therapy, and crisis intervention
• Crisis Intervention Skilled management of a
  psychological emergency
• Paraprofessional Individual who works in a
  near-professional capacity under supervision of a
  more highly trained person

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What Is Social Psychology?

• Social Psychology Scientific studies of how
  individuals behave, think, and feel in social
  situations how people act in the presence
  (actual or implied) of others
• Great Lesson - The POWER of the
  ________________.

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Groups

• Group Structure Network of roles, communication,
  pathways, and power in a group
• Group Cohesiveness Degree of attraction among
  group members or their commitment to remain in
  the group
• In Group A group with which a person identifies
• Out Group Group with which a person does not
  identify
• Cohesive groups work better together
• What kind of groups did you see on Survivor,
  Road Rules, and Real World?

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Social Perception

• Attribution Making inferences about the causes
  of ones own behavior and others behavior
• External Cause of Behavior Assumed to lie
  outside a person
• Internal Cause of Behavior Assumed to lie within
  the person
• Fundamental Attribution Error Tendency to
  attribute behavior of others to internal causes
  (personality, likes, etc.). We believe this even
  if they really have external causes!

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Conformity

• Bringing ones behavior into agreement with norms
  or the behavior of others.
• Solomon Aschs Experiment You must select (from
  a group of three) the line that most closely
  matches the standard line. All lines are shown to
  a group of seven people (including you).
• Other six were accomplices, and at times all
  would select the wrong line.
• In 33 of the trials, the real subject conformed
  to group pressure even when the groups answers
  were obviously incorrect!

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Figure 14.4
FIGURE 14.4 Stimuli used in Solomon Aschs
conformity experiments.
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Obedience (Milgram)

• Conformity to the demands of an authority.
• Would you shock a man with a known heart
  condition who is screaming and asking to be
  released?
• Milgram studied this the man with a heart
  condition was an accomplice and the teacher was
  a real volunteer. The goal was to teach the
  learner word pairs.

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Milgrams Conclusions

• 65 obeyed by going all the way to 450 volts on
  the shock machine, even though the learner
  eventually could not answer any more questions
• Group support can reduce destructive obedience

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Figure 14.6
FIGURE 14.6 Results of Milgrams obedience
experiment. Only a minority of subjects refused
to provide shocks, even at the most extreme
intensities. The first substantial drop in
obedience occurred at the 300-volt level
(Milgram, 1963).
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Brainwashing

• Engineered or forced attitude change requiring a
  captive audience three steps
• Unfreezing Loosening of former values and
  convictions
• Change When the brainwashed person abandons
  former beliefs
• Refreezing Rewarding and solidifying new
  attitudes and beliefs

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Cults

• Groups that profess great devotion to a person
  and follow that person almost without question
• Leaders personality is usually more important
  than the issues he/she preaches
• Members usually victimized by the leader(s)
• Recruit potential converts at a time of need,
  especially when a sense of belonging is most
  attractive to potential converts
• Look for college students and young adults
• Some examples Peoples Temple and Jim Jones
  Heavens Gate Branch Davidians

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Prejudice

• Negative emotional attitude held toward members
  of a specific social group
• Discrimination Unequal treatment of people who
  should have the same rights as others
• Personal Prejudice When members of another
  racial or ethnic group are perceived as a threat
  to ones own interests
• Group Prejudice When a person conforms to group
  norms

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Prosocial Behavior and Bystander Apathy

• Prosocial Behavior Behavior toward others that
  is helpful, constructive, or altruistic
• Bystander Apathy Unwillingness of bystanders to
  offer help during emergencies
• Related to number of people present
• The more potential helpers present, the lower the
  chances help will be given