--Original published at Rickster's Psychology Blog
The textbook lists 4 techniques for mental health treatments. The techniques are psychodynamic, behavioral, humanistic, and Cognitive. I think psychodynamic therapy would be the most helpful for me. I believe its the therapy I had while I was seeing therapist monthly while at school. It helps people with their current symptoms by focusing on themes across important relationships, including childhood experiences, and the therapist relationship.
I think its the most helpful type of therapy for me because I tend to forget or suppress the past which my therapist helped me realize. I don’t think about my childhood because it wasn’t too great. I had/have authoritarian parents so there wasn’t much I cared to remember.
Its astonishing for me to look back at my childhood after taking this class. Especially after learning about the parenting styles and the effects they have on children. I turned out almost exactly how the textbook said I would from being raised by Tiger Parents.
This type of therapy helped me realize why I was shy, had low self esteem, had a lack of social competence, have anxiety, and occasionally struggle with self control. This type of therapy helped me figure out why I am the way I am by digging into my past. All it took was a therapist to give me slight hints and let me put the pieces together to get a mental breakthrough.
I feel being able to have a “eureka” moment when you discover a self-truth is one of the greatest feelings you can have. What I don’t like about psychodynamic therapy is the possibility of taking a long time to reach a mental breakthrough. I feel like many people don’t realize how much their upbringing affects who they are. This is why I believe psychodynamic therapy is the best mental health treatment.
I believe the second best type of therapy is humanistic because it tackles many basic psychological problems. I picture this therapy where the therapist has to work with a delicate patient. The patient lacks self-awareness and empathy. The patient can’t understand the effects their decisions cause and they use heuristics to make their decisions. I feel like patients requiring this therapy use the the phrase “what if” a lot of the time. I don’t like this therapy because it seems like it could a very long time for the patient to experience a breakthrough if the patient doesn’t put full effort into the treatment.
I think the third most effective therapy is cognitive therapy. I ranked it third because if someone talked to me like the therapist did in the textbook, I might lose full composure. Its hard for me to imagine someone who can’t narrow down the significant aspects of their life. I find it hard to picture someone who can’t articulate on their feelings about an event or occurrence.
I find it hard to emphasize with these people because I choose to interact with optimistic people. My friends and I might’ve had a bad day but we could all get together to play some online video games and feed off each other’s positive vibes. I feel like if I hung around Negative Nancy’s all day, I might become one. These people just might need a new friend group.
What I don’t like about this therapy is if the patient can’t learn to elaborate on their feelings with particular events, they will have to go to therapy for a long time.
The least effective therapy I feel is behavior therapy. I think this because its based on classical conditioning. I feel like I have a bias towards it because I think of Pavlov’s dog. Then I think of the Big Bang Theory episode where Sheldon uses chocolates to condition Penny to do what Sheldon sees as correct behavior. I see this type of therapy as artificial with no higher level thought processes involved so I couldn’t see this treatment having a lasting effect on a patient.