Okami Study Guide: Chapter 14
1
Chapter in Review
1. Psychotherapy is a unique healing personal relationship that differs from other helpful
relationships in a number of ways. Psychotherapists’ training varies widely, and the
term psychotherapist is unprotected by laws governing its use in most cases.
Although many therapists receive extensive training and have advanced degrees, in
many cases paraprofessionals with little training perform therapy just as successfully.
The psychotherapy occupations requiring the most rigorous training and education are
clinical psychologist and counseling psychologist, both of which require a Psy.D. or
Ph.D. degree.
2. People enter therapy for many reasons, including psychological disorder, but also to
treat ordinary suffering arising from a distressing event, or various sorts of conflicts
and problems of ordinary life. There are many styles of psychotherapy, including
psychoanalysis, psychodynamic therapy, behavior therapy, rational emotive behavior
therapy, cognitive and cognitive behavior therapy, client-centered therapy, family
therapy, and integrative therapy. No one style of legitimate psychotherapy has proved
superior overall, a finding known as the dodo bird verdict.
3. Psychoanalysis was the first “talk therapy,” and was highly influential throughout the
first part of the 20th century. Classical psychoanalysis is based on the notion that
psychological problems are caused by unconscious, intrapsychic conflicts. The goal
of psychoanalysis is insight. Psychoanalysis has been severely criticized, and it is also
expensive and lengthy in course. However, psychoanalysis has evolved since Freud’s
day, and neo-Freudian psychoanalysis based on object relations theory and other
theories is more commonly seen in psychoanalytic practice than is classical Freudian
psychoanalysis. Pychodynamic therapy is based on theories of psychoanalysis and
shares many of its assumptions, but its therapeutic techniques differ greatly from
psychoanalysis. Some briefer types of psychodynamic therapy also have been
devised.
4. Behavior therapy (behavior modification) was created in opposition to psychoanalytic
and psychodynamic therapy. It is based on the behaviorist (learning theory) view that
psychological disorders are learned patterns of maladaptive behaviors. According to
this view, insight is useless unless it helps to substitute adaptive behaviors and
associations for maladaptive ones. Following in the footsteps of Mary Cover Jones,
the “mother” of behavior therapy, Joseph Wolpe created a number of techniques to
treat anxiety—particularly phobia—through controlled exposure of the phobic person
to the feared object or situation while the client simultaneously practices relaxation or
substitution of fearful thoughts for rational thoughts. Systematic desensitization is one
such technique, flooding another. These techniques are used less frequently than in
the past, and new exposure therapies accomplish results similar to the older therapies,
but in a much shorter time. Two other important techniques of behavior therapy are
aversion therapy, often used for problems such as sex offending or drug addiction;
and operant therapies (e.g., contingency management, token economy), where
rewards or punishments for a person’s spontaneous behavior are used to shape desired
behaviors.
5. Cognition-based therapies include rational-emotive behavior therapy, cognitive
therapy, cognitive-behavior therapy, and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy
(MBCT). Rational-emotive behavior therapy (REBT), devised by Albert Ellis, is
