Psychological Treatments of MDD & Phobias (SL IB Psychology)

What are psychological treatments?

• Psychological treatments operate at the level of the mind i.e. working on patient’s irrational thinking and cognitive distortions
• Psychological treatments do not use drugs or any invasive methods to treat disorders, instead they use talking therapy and targeted tasks/exercises that the patient undergoes with a therapist to guide them or on their own as ‘homework’
• Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) is the most commonly used psychological treatment for MDD and it is often prescribed for other disorders too, including phobias
• CBT includes the following techniques and procedures in (and outside of) therapy sessions (not all of these techniques will be used per patient):

• • Cognitive restructuring/reframing: this involves turning negative thoughts into positive thoughts
  • Guided discovery: this involves challenging negative thoughts and irrational beliefs
  • Exposure therapy: this involves confronting fears and phobias 
  • Keeping a journal: this involves the recording of thoughts, feelings and actions between sessions
  • Activity scheduling and behaviour activation: this involves acting on decisions and avoiding procrastination
  • Behavioural experiments: this involves talking through what might happen in specific anxiety-inducing situations
  • Relaxation and stress reduction techniques: this involves exercises such as muscle relaxation, deep breathing, visualization
  • Role-playing: this involves working through different scenarios which the patient finds difficult or challenging
  • Successive approximation: this involves breaking down overwhelming tasks into smaller, more manageable steps

• The CBT therapist aims to get their client to the point where they can be independent and use strategies practised over the course of the CBT treatment to help themselves (for treatments such as CBT  the therapist works with a 'client': ‘patient’ is the term used for people undergoing biological treatments)
• A course of CBT generally takes between 5-20 sessions with the client and therapist meeting every week or fortnight with each session lasting between 30-60 minutes

CBT changes thoughts, feelings and behaviours holistically

How are psychological treatments used to treat MDD & phobias?

• CBT is used as one of the most widespread treatments for MDD
• CBT focuses on the ‘here and now’, unlike, say, psychoanalysis which looks to the past for the origins of a person’s disorder
• CBT is ideally suited to treat both MDD and phobias as it aims to improve negative thoughts and behaviour, which are features of both disorders
  
  

Evaluation of psychological treatments for MDD & phobias

Strengths

• CBT is one of the most popular and successful therapies for treating a range of disorders, used worldwide due to its effectiveness (Foroushani et al. 2011)
• CBT allows the patient to develop at their own pace with the therapist tailoring the sessions to suit each individual

Weaknesses

• The emphasis on ‘here and now’ may not be appropriate for some patients who need to revisit past events as part of their path to improvement
• CBT may not be suitable for people from collectivist cultures with its emphasis on individual experience and self-motivation