Psychodynamic Therapy Research Paper

Treatment of Psychological Disorders and its Effects

In this paper, I explore the psychodynamic, behavioral and cognitive approaches to treating psychological disorders and its effects.

Psychodynamic therapy focuses on unconscious processes as they are manifested into a person’s behavior. Self-awareness and understanding the influence of the past on present behavior is the goal of psychodynamic therapy. This form of therapy is the oldest of the modern therapies, deriving from Freud’s psychoanalysis. This states that individuals employ defense mechanisms, as a form of minimizing pain. Repression is the most common form of a defense mechanism. It is the rejection from consciousness of painful or disagreeable ideas, memories, feelings or impulses.

Freud believed that drawing out these impulses and thoughts from the unconscious mind to the conscious would minimize anxiety, and the patient could then go on with their lives. Modern day psychotherapy typically requires about 2-3 years of sessions. Practitioners of brief psychodynamic therapy believe that some changes can happen through a more rapid process or that an initial short intervention will start an ongoing process of change that does not need the constant involvement of the therapist.

Behavioral therapy is an action-based therapy that looks to foster positive behavior change. Other forms of therapy such as psychoanalytic therapy tend to form connections to the past. In behavioral therapy, the past is still relevant as it often reveals where and when the undesirable behavior was learned, however it looks more so at present conduct and ways in which it can be changed. Behavioral therapy can be both learned and un-learned. Behavioral therapies are based on the theory of classical or operant conditioning. Examples of behavioral therapy include systematic desensitization, aversion therapy and flooding. Systematic desensitization is a

It involves associating such stimuli and behavior with a very unpleasant unconditioned stimulus, such as an electric shock. The patient then figures out how to relate the undesirable conduct, and a connection is framed between the undesirable conduct and the reflex reaction to an electric shock. In the case of smoking, the patient is told to smoke while a device is placed on them. Smoking the cigar or cigarette is followed almost at once by a shock. In future the smell of cigar or cigarette smoke produces a memory of getting shocked and should stop the patient from smoking. In medieval times, aversion therapy has been used to "cure" homosexuals by shocking them on the off chance that they get to be stirred to specific stimuli. Aversion therapy is unethical and there are two reasons why. First, it is not very clear how the shocks or drugs have their effects. It may be that they make the previously attractive stimulus aversive, or it may be that they reduce the behavior of drinking. Second, there are doubts about the long-term effectiveness of aversion therapy. It can have dramatic effects in the therapist’s office. In any case, it is regularly a great deal less compelling in the outside world, where no nausea-inducing drug has been taken and it is clear that no shocks will be given.