Dirty Dozen on Common Elements of Psychotherapy in WordPress Shortcode

Dirty Dozen on Common Elements of Psychotherapy by Jim Amos, MD

What is Psychotherapy?

-Change facilitation

-Self awareness development

-Doesn’t necessarily have to occur in formal therapy encounters

-Can happen between patients and a wide range of professionals

Patient Variables and Relationship Factors

-Ability to relate, psychological mindedness

-Therapeutic alliance

-Readiness to change

-Respect, listening for understanding

Placebo, Hope, and Expectancy Effects

-Power of providing a “treatment experience”

-An emotionally charged relationship in which therapy instills hope for change

-A particular set of procedures that enhance belief in the therapist’s competency

-A therapeutic explanation of the problems that fits the patient’s belief system

Motivational Interviewing

-Intended to raise patient’s awareness of ambivalence between opposing thoughts and behaviors

-Accepts the “yes, but” responses without confrontation

-Emphasizes validation, reflection, reframing

-Source: Miller, W. R. and S. Rollnick (1991). Motivational interviewing : preparing people to change addictive behavior. New York, Guilford Press.

Motivational Interviewing cont. Stages of Readiness to Change

-Precontemplation

-Contemplation

-Preparation

-Action

-Maintenance

-Termination

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

-Foci of treatment are internally based cognitions and challenging, unhelpful or harmful thoughts and behaviors.

-Time limited

Interpersonal Therapy (IPT)

-Focus on interpersonal communications with others

-Focus on helping improve communication and social support in the present

-Time limited

Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

-Focus of treatment is on understanding contributions of early life experiences to psychological functioning and unhelpful or harmful behaviors

-Can be lengthy or open-ended

Essential Operations of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

-Accepting: Therapist affirms the patient’s past and present subjective experience

-Understanding: Therapist appreciates both the conscious and unconscious contributions to the patient’s emotional problems

-Explaining: Therapist expresses, through interpretations, his or her understanding to the patient

Integrating Therapies

-Skillfully staged combinations of approaches may be more successful than one used alone

-Cognitive behavioral or interpersonal approaches first for more immediate symptom relief

-Psychodynamic approaches first for increasing self-awareness and exploring the need for change

References

-Dewan, M. J., MD,, B. N. Steenbarger, PhD,, et al., Eds. (2004). The Art and Science of Brief Psychotherapies: A Practitioner’s Guide. Core Competencies in Psychotherapy. Washington, DC, American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc.

-Miller, W. R. and S. Rollnick (1991). Motivational interviewing : preparing people to change addictive behavior. New York, Guilford Press.