Comparing Psychodynamic And Cognitive Theories

Therapies are often developed to treat a specific disorder or specific populations. The needs of the client are taken into account when these treatments are developed. All treatments are based off of theories of pathology from various perspectives such as the behavioral or cognitive perspectives. Cognitive theories argue that it is not just the reward and punishment of conditioning, like in behavioral models, but our cognition shapes our behavior and emotions. In the cognitive model it is believed that causal attributions influence behavior. These attributions influence behavior because they impact the meaning given to events. In short, its not just what we experience but it is how we perceive our experiences. I watched two videos both using …show more content…
The therapist uses this example to show that it is the cognition that cause the somatic symptoms and not something actually wrong that causes panic. This and all of the other ways the therapist challenges his clients belief cause doubt about the sincerity of the issues. The patient begins to have doubts about his condition being one of the heart. To me this supports that this therapy is effective with this client. The client is asked several time, on scale of not to one hundred, how much he in convinced thats his problems is fatal and that number decreases every time. The theories about panic disorder are biological and cognitive. Biologically this disorder runs in families so its assumed ones genetic makeup may influence a susceptibility to panic disorder. On the cognitive side its beloved that these people pay too much attention to bodily sensations and misinterpret them then engage in exaggerated thinking. All of this leads to a maladaptive thinking about what is actually happening to them. So, its the job of the therapy to challenge this and bring the patient an adaptive way of dealing with their concerns. This is what we observed in the actor …show more content…
When deciding on the type of therapy a client will use the needs of the client need to be considered. For instance a client with depression needs to examined thoroughly in order to be treated in way that is helpful for their condition while having little impact on the rest of that persons life. If the client is only mildly depressed then using drug therapies, like SSRIs and SNRIs, may be overkill. Causing side effects that were worse than the original issue, instead a more mild form of treatment like talk therapy may be more effective with less side effects. Then there is the converse of that, a patient not receiving enough intervention. If someone is severely depressed and they are only attending talk therapy with little success then its the duty of the therapist to suggest alternate treatment, perhaps in this case a drug therapy may fit the client