Psychotherapy Techniques and Treatments: A Comprehensive Overview
Psychotherapy
Professional treatment for psychological disorders through techniques designed to encourage communication of conflicts and insight.
Psychodynamic Therapy
(Psychoanalysis) A psychological treatment based on Freudian and neo-Freudian personality theories in which the therapist helps the patient explore the unconscious dynamics of personality.
Free Association
A technique of psychotherapy in which the therapist listens while the client talks about whatever comes to mind, without any censorship or filtering.
Dream Analysis
A technique of psychotherapy in which the therapist listens while the client describes his or her dreams and then analyzes the symbolism of the dreams.
Resistance
An occurrence in psychotherapy in which the patient uses defense mechanisms to avoid the painful feelings in his or her unconscious.
Humanistic Therapy
A psychological treatment based on the personality theories of Carl Rogers and other humanistic psychologists.
Client-Centered Therapy
An approach to treatment in which the client is helped to grow and develop as the therapist provides a comfortable, nonjudgmental environment.
Cognitive-Behavior Therapy (CBT)
A structured approach to treatment that attempts to reduce psychological disorders through systematic procedures based on cognitive and behavioral principles.
Behavioral Therapy
Psychological treatment that is based on principles of learning.
Exposure Therapy
A behavioral therapy based on the classical conditioning principle of extinction in which people are confronted with a feared stimulus with the goal of decreasing their negative emotional responses to it.
Systematic Desensitization
A behavioral treatment that combines imagining or experiencing the feared object or situation with relaxation exercises.
Aversion Therapy
A behavioral therapy in which positive punishment is used to reduce the frequency of an undesirable behavior.
Cognitive Therapy
A psychological treatment that helps clients identify incorrect or distorted beliefs that are contributing to disorder.
Biomedical Therapies
Treatments designed to reduce psychological disorder by influencing the action of the central nervous system.
Antidepressant Medications
Drugs designed to improve moods.
Antianxiety Medications
Drugs designed to help relieve fear or anxiety.
Antipsychotic Drugs
Drugs that treat the symptoms of schizophrenia and related disorders.
Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)
A medical procedure designed to alleviate psychological disorder in which electric currents are passed through the brain, deliberately triggering a brief seizure.
Psychosurgery
Surgery that removes or destroys brain tissue in the hope of improving disorder.
Group Therapy
Psychotherapy in which clients receive psychological treatment together with others.
Community Mental Health Services
Psychological treatments and interventions that are distributed at the community level. The focus of community mental health services is prevention.
Meta-Analysis
A statistical technique that uses the results of existing studies to integrate and draw conclusions about those studies.