Psych 401, Chapter 6 "Basic Features of Clinical Interventions"

- Often caricatured or stereotyped - psychologists shown as unprofessional, violating ethical codes - treatments oversimplified ('positive' portrayals usually involve de-repression of a traumatic memory)

"Get Shrunk at Your Own Risk" - implies all psychotherapy might be risky - of course some forms of psychotherapy may do more harm than good, and these forms should be removed from public use, but the same can be said of medical treatment

- in part by a lack of mental health leteracy

- as many as over 400 brand name therapies - about a dozen 'essential' psychotherapies - if arranged according to basic assumptions about personality development, the causes of disorders, and psychotherapy techniques, there are a handful of major approaches - five major schools: psychodynamic, humanistic, behavioral, cognitive, and group/systems

Their usual coping strategies - such as utilizing the support of friends and family or taking a vacation - are no longer sufficient to deal with the problems

1) anxiety disorders2) mood disorders3) impulse control disorders4) substance abuse disorders

They can start at any point in life, but the more serious ones usually start early - symptoms often appear by age 14

Generally very low. The prevalence rate for any disorder is about 26% and treatment utilization ranges from 1-6%.*Those seeking outpatient psychotherapy are more likely to be middle aged, educated, white, female, and divorced or separated
- people age 65 and older get treatment the least (just over 1%) - females get treatment more than males (4% vs. 3%) - divorced or separated people get treatment the most (6.5%) - more educated people get treatment more often - age forms a general bell curve, with ages 35-44 getting treatment the most frequently

Hardly at all! "Patient diagnosis has largely failed as a basis for selecting among treatments"

As a general rule, broad demographic variables (e.g. age, sex, ethnicity, SES) play relatively insignificant roles in the overall effectiveness of therapy

Cooperation vs. resistance
openness vs. defensiveness

While conventional wisdom says it is directly related, some studies have found surprisingly weak relationship between the two.Could be that... - only a minimal amount of motivation is actually needed for successful therapy - motivation can change from one treatment session to the next, or even within sessions -- this makes it difficult to summarize in a single measure that can be related to outcome

* clients' internal representations of therapists (how client brings to awareness image of his/her therapist) - level of distress - expectations for treatment success - coping style
Moral of the story: it's frequently more important to know what kind of patient has the disorder than what kind of disorder the patient has.

- strong interpersonal skills, including those related to ...
Communication:
- ability to recognize differences and intensities in clients' emotional experiences - verbal repertoire capable of putting these shadings into wordsRelationship building: - genuineness - empathy - unconditional positive regardSelf Monitoring: - different orientations have different ways of achieving this
As a group, referred to as 'macroskills'.

- self-control - sympathy - positive attitudes toward themselves and people in general