Page 3 - LN 1_Therapuetic Approaches

2. How did the cause come into existence?
▪ In the psychodynamic therapy, unfulfilled desires of childhood and unresolved
childhood fears lead to intrapsychic conflicts.
▪ The behaviour therapy postulates that faulty conditioning patterns, faulty
learning, and faulty thinking and beliefs lead to maladaptive behaviours.
▪ According to the existential therapy, it is the current feelings of loneliness,
alienation, sense of futility of one’s existence, etc., which cause psychological
problems.

3. What is the chief method of treatment?
▪ Psychodynamic therapy uses the methods of free association and reporting of
dreams to elicit the thoughts and feelings of the client which is interpreted to
the client to help her/him to confront and resolve the conflicts and thus
overcome problems.
▪ Behaviour therapy identifies the faulty conditioning patterns and sets up
alternate behavioural contingencies to improve behaviour.
▪ The cognitive methods employed in this type of therapy challenge the faulty
thinking patterns of the client to help her/him overcome psychological
distress.
▪ The existential therapy provides a therapeutic environment which is positive,
accepting, and non-judgmental. The client is able to talk about the problems
and the therapist acts as a facilitator. The client arrives at the solutions through
a process of personal growth.

4. What is the nature of the therapeutic relationship between the client and the
therapist?
▪ Psychodynamic therapy assumes that the therapist understands the client’s
intrapsychic conflicts better than the client and hence it is the therapist who
interprets the thoughts and feelings of the client to her/him so that s/he gains
an understanding of the same.
▪ The behaviour therapy assumes that the therapist is able to discern the faulty
behaviour and thought patterns of the client and that s/he is capable of finding
out the correct behaviour and thought patterns, which would be adaptive for
the client.
▪ Both the psychodynamic and the behaviour therapies assume that the therapist
is capable of arriving at solutions to the client’s problems.
▪ In contrast, the existential therapies emphasise that the therapist merely
provides a warm, empathic relationship in which the client feels secure to
explore the nature and causes of her/his problems by herself/himself.

5. What is the chief benefit to the client?
▪ Psychodynamic therapy values emotional insight as the important benefit that
the client derives from the treatment.