Types of therapy – Psychology for NCET

The essentials

Different therapies rest on different ideas about what causes psychological problems.

Key points

Psychodynamic therapy (Freud): problems arise from unconscious conflicts. Techniques: free association (saying whatever comes to mind) and dream interpretation. Transference: the client relates to the therapist as to an important figure from the past; it may be positive or negative. Resistance: conscious or unconscious opposition to progress. Interpretation uses confrontation and clarification. Working through repeatedly explores issues to gain insight, which may be intellectual or emotional.
Behaviour therapy: faulty behaviours are learnt and can be unlearnt. Functional analysis looks at antecedents, behaviour and consequences. Techniques: relaxation, aversive conditioning (pairing an unwanted behaviour with an unpleasant consequence), positive reinforcement, token economy (tokens earned for desired behaviour exchanged for rewards), differential reinforcement, modelling and systematic desensitisation (Joseph Wolpe; relaxation paired with a graded anxiety hierarchy, based on reciprocal inhibition).
Cognitive therapy: Albert Ellis's rational emotive therapy (RET/REBT) uses the ABC model: Antecedent event, Belief and Consequence; irrational beliefs are challenged through non-directive questioning. Aaron Beck's cognitive therapy targets negative automatic thoughts and cognitive distortions arising from core schemas.
Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) combines both and is widely used for anxiety, depression and other disorders.
Humanistic-existential therapies: Viktor Frankl's logotherapy helps clients find meaning in life; Carl Rogers's client-centred therapy offers empathy, warmth and unconditional positive regard in a non-directive way; Gestalt therapy (Fritz Perls and Laura Perls) increases self-awareness and self-acceptance.

Common mistakes

Systematic desensitisation is gradual; flooding (sudden full exposure) is a different technique.
In the ABC model, B is the belief, not the behaviour.

In psychoanalytic therapy, asking the client to say whatever comes to mind without censoring it is called	Easy
Logotherapy, which helps clients find meaning in their lives, was developed by	Easy
A child with a fear of dogs is taught relaxation and then, step by step, imagines a dog picture, a distant dog and fina…	Medium
During therapy, a client begins to treat the therapist with the anger he once felt towards his strict father. This is	Medium
A student thinks, "I failed one test, so I must be a complete failure," and feels hopeless. A therapist questions the l…	Hard

The essentials

Key points

Common mistakes

Practice questions