Psychological Therapies (OCR A-Level Psychology): Revision Notes
12.3.4 Psychological Therapies
Cognitive behaviour therapy and family therapy
Family therapy
A psychological therapy involving schizophrenic patients and their families which aims to reduce family conflict
- The therapist educates the family on the disorder and its symptoms. This helps them understand the illness
- The therapist helps the family find more effective coping strategies for the patient for example re-directing their thoughts. This can help when they are struggling to cope with symptoms
- Changing communication styles. This could help to reduce the degree of expressed emotion in the family
Cognitive behavioural therapy
Aims to challenge the patient's irrational beliefs and thought processes such as delusions.
- The therapist encourages the patient to explain their experiences. They challenge any irrational beliefs by giving evidence that disproves their thoughts, helping the patient understand that they are not based on reality t
- The patient is then given homework to test the therapist's hypothesis and to try out coping strategies they have learned in therapy
Evaluation of family therapy
(1)
P: Has economic benefits
E: research has shown that family therapy has helped to significantly reduce relapse rates from 40% with drug therapy to 20% with family therapy
E: This can provide economic benefits and be highly cost-efficient as a lower relapse rate means patients are using fewer hospital beds and resources and may be more able to work
(2)
P: There are practical issues with psychological therapies
E: This is because they can often take an extended period e.g. a year. As a result, families may drop out of therapy, so the effectiveness may depend on the rapport the therapist can build with the family.
E: this can be time-consuming especially if the family feel attacked or judged. Therefore, this may not be the most effective method due to how time-consuming it is and perhaps faster methods such as drugs can be argued to be more effective.
Evaluation of CBT
(3)
P: There are individual differences so CBT may not be effective for everyone with schizophrenia some patients might feel judged by the therapist or overwhelmed by the amount of work that has to be done considering that they had given homework on top of sessions.
E: Therefore, there are individual differences in patients' experiences of CBT so the effectiveness will vary between individuals
(4)
P: Other treatments may be more effective and cost-efficient
E: for example, drug therapies E.G antipsychotics treat the biological causes of schizophrenia and are also able to be mass produced. This makes it cheaper than CBT as it requires a trained specialist.
E: This challenge is where CBT is the most effective way of treating schizophrenia in comparison to drug therapies