Chapter 25
Psychotherapies
Key ideas
Psychodynamic approaches: Unconscious conflicts are the root of psychological distress.
Therapy is based on insight.
Cognitive-behavioural approaches: Cognitive distortions (fault thinking) result in psychological
distress. Therapeutic approach is action orientated.
Experiential and relationship-oriented approaches: Incongruence between self-concept and
reality result in psychological distress. Experiential approaches are concerned with what it means
to be fully human. Person-centered (relationship-orientated) approaches emphasize the basic
attitudes of the therapist.
System and post-modern approaches: Systems approaches pay attention to clients in their
family and cultural context, postmodern approaches argue that reality is socially constructed and
there is no single truth in human relationships.
Psychoanalytic psychotherapy
Therapeutic techniques and procedures:
Free association
Interpretation
Dream analysis (manifest content and latent content).
• The client may offer resistance to the therapist’s interpretations.
• Transference occurs when clients unconsciously relate to the therapist in ways that are
similar to significant relationships
in their lives. Countertransference
on the part of the therapist may
lead to inaccurate interpretations.
, Cognitive-behavioural therapy
• Cognitive distortions include arbitrary
inferences, selective abstraction,
overgeneralisation, magnification and
minimisation, personalisation, labelling and
polarised thinking.
Therapeutic techniques:
o Psycho-educational, task-oriented
techniques give clients insight into negative automatic thoughts that underlie
feelings and behaviour.
o The therapist challenges these negative thoughts by asking clients to provide
evidence for their self-beliefs.
o Clients thus learn new ways of perceiving and interpreting situations.
Therapy is time limited with a specific problem-solving focus.
Psychotherapies
Key ideas
Psychodynamic approaches: Unconscious conflicts are the root of psychological distress.
Therapy is based on insight.
Cognitive-behavioural approaches: Cognitive distortions (fault thinking) result in psychological
distress. Therapeutic approach is action orientated.
Experiential and relationship-oriented approaches: Incongruence between self-concept and
reality result in psychological distress. Experiential approaches are concerned with what it means
to be fully human. Person-centered (relationship-orientated) approaches emphasize the basic
attitudes of the therapist.
System and post-modern approaches: Systems approaches pay attention to clients in their
family and cultural context, postmodern approaches argue that reality is socially constructed and
there is no single truth in human relationships.
Psychoanalytic psychotherapy
Therapeutic techniques and procedures:
Free association
Interpretation
Dream analysis (manifest content and latent content).
• The client may offer resistance to the therapist’s interpretations.
• Transference occurs when clients unconsciously relate to the therapist in ways that are
similar to significant relationships
in their lives. Countertransference
on the part of the therapist may
lead to inaccurate interpretations.
, Cognitive-behavioural therapy
• Cognitive distortions include arbitrary
inferences, selective abstraction,
overgeneralisation, magnification and
minimisation, personalisation, labelling and
polarised thinking.
Therapeutic techniques:
o Psycho-educational, task-oriented
techniques give clients insight into negative automatic thoughts that underlie
feelings and behaviour.
o The therapist challenges these negative thoughts by asking clients to provide
evidence for their self-beliefs.
o Clients thus learn new ways of perceiving and interpreting situations.
Therapy is time limited with a specific problem-solving focus.
