Hockenbury Discovering Psychology 5th txtbk

580 CHAPTER 14 Therapieshelping me to ignore or manage situationsthat might under certain circumstances triggerdepression, anxiety, or obsessive worry.And it makes me a better parent and marriagepartner.Therapy’s negative effects? I’m poorer; it costsmoney. And therapy poses the risk of becomingan end in itself. Psychotherapy has the attractionof being a safe harbor from the pettyassaults of everyday life. There’s always thedanger of losing sight of the goal of becominga healthier and more productive person, andbecoming stuck in the therapy process.Marcia’s experience with psychotherapyreflects many of the themes we willtouch on in this chapter. We’ll look at differentforms of therapy that psychologistsand other mental health professionals useto help people cope with psychologicalproblems. We’ll also consider the popularityof self-help groups and how theydiffer from more structured forms oftherapy. Toward the end of the chapter,we’ll discuss biomedical approaches tothe treatment of psychological disorders.Over the course of the chapter, we’llcome back to Marcia’s story.>> Introduction: Psychotherapy andBiomedical TherapyKey Theme• Two forms of therapy are used to treat psychological disorders andpersonal problems—psychotherapy and the biomedical therapies.Key Questions• What is psychotherapy, and what is its basic assumption?• What is biomedical therapy, and how does it differ from psychotherapy?Seeking Help People enter psychotherapyfor many different reasons. Some peopleseek to overcome severe psychologicaldisorders, while others want to learn howto cope better with everyday challenges orrelationship problems. And, for some people,the goal of therapy is to attain greaterself-knowledge or personal fulfillment.People seek help from mental health professionals for a variety of reasons. LikeMarcia, many people seek help because they are suffering from some form of a psychologicaldisorder—troubling thoughts, feelings, or behaviors that cause psychologicaldiscomfort or interfere with a person’s ability to function.But not everyone who seeks professional help is suffering from a psychologicaldisorder. Many people seek help in dealing with troubled relationships, such asparent–child conflicts or an unhappy marriage. And sometimes people need helpwith life’s transitions, such as coping with the death of a loved one, dissolving a marriage,or adjusting to retirement.In this chapter, we’ll look at the two broad forms of therapy that mental health professionalsuse to help people: psychotherapy and biomedical therapy. Psychotherapy refersto the use of psychological techniques to treat emotional, behavioral, and interpersonalproblems. While there are many different types of psychotherapy, they all share the assumptionthat psychological factors play a significant role in a person’s troubling feelings,behaviors, or relationships. Table 14.1 summarizes the diverse range of mentalhealth professionals who use psychotherapy techniques to help people.In contrast to psychotherapy, the biomedical therapies involve the use of medicationor other medical treatments to treat the symptoms associated with psychologicaldisorders. Drugs that are used to treat psychological or mental disorders aretermed psychotropic medications. The biomedical therapies are based on the assumptionthat the symptoms of many psychological disorders involve biological factors,such as abnormal brain chemistry. As we saw in Chapter 13, the involvement ofbiological factors in many psychological disorders is well documented. Treating psychologicaldisorders with a combination of psychotherapy and biomedical therapy,