psychotherapy
an emotionally charged confiding interaction between a trained therapist and someone who suffers from psychological difficulties.
biomedical therapy
prescribed medications or medical procedures that act directly on the patient's nervous system.
eclectic approach
an approach to psychotherapy that, depending on the client's problems, uses techniques from various forms of therapy.
psychoanalysis
Sigmund Freud's therapeutic technique. Freud believed the patient's free associations, resistances, dreams, and transferences-and the therapist's interpretations of them- released previously repressed feelings, allowing the patient to gain self-insight.
resistance
in psychoanalysis, the blocking from consciousness of anxiety-laden material
interpretation
in psychoanalysis, the analyst's noting supposed dream meanings, resistances, and other significant behaviors and events in order to promote insight.
transference
in psychoanalysis, the patient's transfer to the analyst of emotions linked with other relationships.
client-centered therapy
a humanistic therapy, developed by Carl Rogers, in which the therapist uses techniques such as active listening within a genuine, accepting, empathic environment to facilitate clients' growth.
active listening
empathic listening in which the listener echoes, restates, and clarifies. A feature of Roger's client-centered therapy.
behavior therapy
therapy that applies learning principles to the elimination of unwanted behaviors.
counterconditioning
a behavior therapy procedure that conditions new responses to stimuli that trigger unwanted behaviors' based on classical conditioning.
exposure therapies
behavioral techniques, such as systematic desensitization, that treat anxieties by exposing people to the things they fear and avoid.
systematic desensitization
a type of counterconditioning that associates a pleasant relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety-triggering stimuli. Commonly used to treat phobias
virtual reality exposure therapy
an anxiety treatment that progressively exposes people to simulations of their greatest fears, such as airplane flying, spiders, or public speaking.
aversive conditioning
a type of counterconditioning that associates an unpleasant state with an unwanted behavior.
token economy
an operant conditioning procedure in which people earn a token of some sort for exhibiting a desired behavior and can later exchange the tokens for various privileges or treats.
cognitive therapy
therapy that teaches people new, more adaptive ways of thinking and acting, based on the assumption that thoughts intervene between events and our emotional reactions.
cognitive-behavior therapy
a popular integrated therapy that combines cognitive therapy with behavior therapy.
family therapy
therapy that treats the family as a system. Views an individual's unwanted behaviors as influenced by or directed at other family members; attempts to guide family members toward positive relationships and improved communication.
meta-analysis
a procedure for statistically combining the results of many different research studies.
psychopharmacology
the study of the effects of drugs on mind and behavior.
tardive dyskinesia
involuntary movements of the facial muscles, tongue, and limbs; a possible neurotoxic side effect of long-term use of antipsychotic drugs that tarfet D2 dopamine receptors.
electroconvulsive therapy
a biomedical therapy for severely depressed patients in which a brief electric current is sent through the brain of an anesthetized patient.
repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation
the application of repeated pulses of magnetic energy to the brain; used to stimulate or suppress brain activity.
psychosurgery
surgery that removes or destroys brain tissue in an effort to change behavior.
lobotomy
a now-rare psychosurgical procedure once used to calm uncontrollably emotional or violent patients. The procedure cut the nerves that connect the frontal lobes to the emotion-controlling centers of the inner brain.