Psychological Treatment

1 Key excerpts on "Psychological Treatment"

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  eBook - ePub

  The SAGE Encyclopedia of Abnormal and Clinical Psychology

  • Amy E. Wenzel(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  Geoffrey L. Thorpe Geoffrey L. Thorpe Thorpe, Geoffrey L.

  Treatment, Therapeutic Approaches, and Relevant Constructs: Overview Treatment, therapeutic approaches, and relevant constructs: overview

  3635 3643

  Treatment, Therapeutic Approaches, and Relevant Constructs: Overview

  In psychotherapy, skilled professionals systematically apply psychological principles and methods in the mental health arena, helping people make beneficial changes in their behavior, thoughts, feelings, or social interactions to reduce emotional distress and impairment and to promote optimal functioning. Psychotherapists draw from their knowledge of psychopathology (mental health disorders) and psychological change processes (e.g., gaining insight, learning to regulate emotions, or acquiring new skills) in providing their services. (Those receiving psychotherapy may be called clients or patients; however, for consistency, this entry uses the term client.) Normally a collaborative relationship between a provider and a client, psychotherapy can take a variety of forms. The most familiar format is the therapist-client dyad, but psychotherapists also work with couples, families, groups, and even—in residential settings—an entire therapeutic milieu. Occasionally, two or more therapists work together as a team with multiple clients during the same treatment session. Common to all formats is a trusting professional relationship in which the therapist takes the responsibility for delivering treatment interventions in a culturally sensitive manner and according to accepted ethical standards.

  Psychotherapy is one of the most important functions of clinical psychologists and a prominent feature of the study of abnormal behavior. Psychology as a science studies topics such as perception, learning, memory, thinking, and social behavior and focuses on those interacting biological, behavioral, and cognitive processes that produce human psychological functioning. As an applied science in the health care domain, clinical psychology attends to those processes in developing and applying treatments for the patterns of signs and symptoms associated with mental health disorders.

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