Posted by boBB on May 19, 2000, at 19:02:16
In reply to Psychotherapy v. CBT, posted by Snowie on May 19, 2000, at 17:01:26
Psychotherapy is a broad term that refers to the use of psychological principals to treat behavioral or emotional problems. Psychoanalytic, cognitive and behavioral approaches all come under the umbrella of psychotherapy.
Cognitive therapies rely on an individual's logical abilities to overcome emotional difficulties.
Behavioral therapies focus on the environment outside an individual, and often involve goal setting, self monitoring, self evaluation and self reinforcement.
Well, that is what I can recite out of the few textbooks at my disposal. I am not really up on the plethora of popular methods in use today. Perhaps CBT refers to a hybrid of cognitive and behavioral therapies. The tradition in psychotherapy, it seems to me, has been for theorists and therapists to borrow from each other and to hybridize various approaches.
My survey is far from complete, but it seems to me behavioral approaches are more often used in settings where individuals are likely to be ordered by a court to participate in therapy, such as in cases of domestic violence, drunk driving or the use of illegal drugs. Cognitive therapies are most often offered to individuals working for large institutions, such as universities, where a large pool of insured lives provides sufficient capital to pay for prolonged talk therapy.
To continue with an overview of methods that might be hybridized into an individual therapists technique, there are also
• psychodynamic theories, ranging from traditional Freudian pschoanalysis, with its presumptions of oral, anal and phalic stages of development, which if thwarted, result in specific patterns of maladaptation in adult life; to Jungian anaylsis, which presumes broad archetypes shared by society in a collective unconscience, which can be interpreted as they reveal themselves in dreams, to Alderian methods, which presume that individuals strive for superiority in a social context, to Katherine Horneys suggestion of conflicting parts of an individual psyche.
• humanistic theories, which focus on the ability of individuals to control and change their circumstances.
Even in the cognitive camp, there are several methods, including transactional analysis, reality therapy, and rational-emotive therapy. Then there are some fringe ideas - I have know of county mental health counselors who offer hypnotherapy of the kind associated with past life regression and recall of repressed memories of abuse. A practice called direct therapy involved(s) basically locking down clients and assaulting them with accusations of their own complicity in their apparent disfunction.
IMHO, any or all of these methods have been tested in recent years by the contributions of "wet" psychology, which is the product of neurological research. The therapies available on the market tend to reflect the latest thinking of researchers and theorists along with the historic body of psychological theory. In some cases, theorists have revised their theories in light of neurological findings. In other cases, theorists have claimed vindication by neurological findings. It seems to me that the importance of early childhood development, and the indelibility of emotional drives have been in part validated by research, but I am not well versed in the materials, methods and interpretations that contribute to that vindication. At any rate, the idea of emotional indelibility is a primary underpinning of the "chemical imbalance" school of thought that is offered along with most pmed scrips.
There was a time, in the '60s, when the most common mild psychological disorder seemed to be "inferiority complexes." More recently, with a vast body of research demonstrating correlations between neurotransmitters, mood and behavior, the leading disorders have become depression and attention deficit disorders. In the past few weeks, the American Psychiatric Association has revised its criterea for diagnosis of ADD, recognizing the normal adolescent rambunctiousness is often misidentified as ADD. The prevelance of these disorders seems to correlate to the willingness of insurance companies to pay for treatments based on the diagnosis.
Apparently, medications are the treatment of choice and in many cases companies are refusing to pay for long term "talk therapy," of the sort that is likely to effectively sublimate emotional problems into socially constructive thought or behavior. Even less common are sociologists who rely on a broad body of psychological and neurological research to indicte society for the disorders it systematically imposes on individuals. Would-be sociologists with such lofty aspirations will likely find little employment or research funding in an academic community that is closely allied with industrial-capitalism.
In any case, your individual expectations and the expectations of your preferred social circle will likely determine what is considered "disorder." It might be luck of the draw that determines whether you will find a trained, working clinician willing to help you delve into internal factors that influence your dissatisfaction with your self. One counselor might tell you only medications can treat ADD because "it is a brain disease." Across the street, another therapist might say you have no deficit of attention but rather you are involved in situations that demand too much attention. If you believe that therapist, but still wonder why your attention span is less than that of your peers, you might meet another therapist across town who will delve into your childhood and explore the context of your emotional development. Perhaps in the process you might enjoy a cathartic experience that in deed seems to expand on your span of attention.
On the other hand, if you are a low income factory worker, with two children to support, you might ignore all of the medical advice and regularly purchase an aminergic agent such as methamphetamine that closely resembles the psychopharmaceutical offerings such as Ritalin often used to improve apparent deficits in the span of an individual's attention.
If you read all the way through this poorly edited post, I would seriously consider that your attention span is adequate when you are involved with a subject about which you are truly concerned. I would suggest that you look deep inside yourself to see what really matters to you and persue that interest at any cost.
poster:boBB
thread:34042
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000517/msgs/34055.html