| psychotherapy | A form of therapy in which a trained professional uses methods based on psychological theories to help a person with psychological problems.
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| psychoanalysis | A method of psychotherapy developed by Freud based on his belief that the root of all psychological problems is unconscious conflicts among the id, the ego, and the superego.
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| free association | A tool used by Freud in which the patient is encouraged to talk about whatever comes to mind, allowing the contents of the unconscious mind to slip past the censorship of the ego.
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| dream interpretation | A method developed by Freud in which the symbols of the manifest content of dreams that are recalled by the patient are interpreted to reveal their latent content.
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| resistance | Any form of patient opposition to the process of psychoanalysis.
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| transference | The phenomenon in psychoanalysis in which the patient comes to feel and act toward the therapist in ways that resemble how he or she feels and acts toward other significant adults.
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| catharsis | The release of emotional energy related to unconscious conflicts.
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| interpersonal psychotherapy | A form of psychological therapy, based on the theories of neo-Freudian Harry Stack Sullivan, that focuses on the accurate identification and communication of feelings and the improvement of current social relationships.
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| client-centered psychotherapy | Carl Rogers' approach to humanistic psychotherapy, in which the therapist creates an atmosphere that encourages clients to discover feelings of which they were unaware.
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| reflection | A technique in humanistic psychotherapy in which the therapist reflects the emotions of the client to help clients clarify their feelings.
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| Gestalt therapy | A humanistic therapy in which the therapist takes an active role (questioning and challenging the client) to help the client become more aware of his or her feelings.
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| behavior therapy | Psychotherapy based on social learning theory in which the therapist helps the client unlearn abnormal ways of behaving and learn more adaptive ways to take their place.
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| systematic desensitization | A behavior therapy method in which the client is taught not to fear phobic stimuli by learning to stay relaxed in the presence of successively more threatening stimuli.
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| progressive relaxation training | A method of learning to deeply relax the muscles of the body.
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| graded exposure | A behavior therapy technique in which a person with a phobia is first exposed to a stimulus that is mildly fear provoking. Once the client has mastered his or her anxiety in that situation, he or she is exposed to a graded series of more fearful situations.
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| social skills training | The use of techniques of operant conditioning to teach social skills to persons who lack them.
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| role playing | A therapeutic technique in which the therapist and client act as if they were people in problematic situations.
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| assertiveness training | A method of behavior therapy that teaches individuals assertive rather than passive or aggressive ways of dealing with problematic situations.
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| cognitive therapy | An approach to therapy that teaches individuals new cognitions--adaptive beliefs, expectations, and ways of thinking --to eliminate abnormal emotions and behavior.
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| feminist psychotherapy | An approach to psychotherapy that encourages women to confront issues created by living in a sexist society as part of their psychotherapy.
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| group therapy | Psychotherapy conducted in groups, typically of four to eight clients at a time.
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| family therapy | An approach to psychotherapy that emphasizes an understanding of the roles of each of the members of the family system, usually conducted with all members of the family present.
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| medical therapies | Those therapies--including drug therapy, electroconvulsive therapy, and psychosurgery--generally designed to correct a physical condition that is believed to be the cause of a psychological disorder.
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| drug therapy | A medical therapy that uses medications to treat abnormal behavior.
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| electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) | A medical therapy that uses electrical current to induce controlled convulsive seizures that alleviate some types of mental disorders.
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| psychosurgery | A medical therapy that involves operating on the brain in an attempt to alleviate some types of mental disorders.
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| cingulotomy | A type of psychosurgery for severe and otherwise untreatable obsessivecompulsive disorder; it involves surgical destruction of part of the cingulate cortex.
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