Clinical Psychology, Psychodynamic, Cognitive-Behavioral, Humanistic,

¶ … Clinical Psychology, Psychodynamic, Cognitive-Behavioral, Humanistic, and Family

The effectiveness of clinical psychology:

Psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, humanistic, and family therapies

It is a common joke regarding clinical therapeutic practice: the individual who has been in costly psychoanalysis for so long, yet never seems to be getting any better. However, given the fact that few individuals have the time, money, or inclination for the deep probing of childhood trauma and free-association that is the heart of traditional Freudian or psychodynamic therapy, shorter, evidenced-based approaches such as cognitive-behavioral therapy have become more popular. Because cognitive-behavioral therapy is focused on effects, theoretically its efficacy can be more easily measured. It has proven particularly helpful in treating conditions like social anxiety disorder, panic disorders, and personality disorders once thought intractable. "Two ancillary assumptions underpin the approach of the cognitive therapist: 1) the client is capable of becoming aware of his or her own thoughts and of changing them, and 2) sometimes the thoughts elicited by stimuli distort or otherwise fail to reflect reality accurately"(Mulhauser 2009).

Rather than probing the irrational unconscious and deep childhood trauma, cognitive-behavioral therapists focus on changing the behavior of clients, stressing that changing behavior often changes thought processes, and vice versa. If a depressed client articulates: 'everything I do is stupid,' the therapist tries to parse the comment and help the client see the irrationality of this sweeping statement. While cognitive-behavioral therapy tends to be favored today, especially for personality disorders, the research is by no means conclusive that it is more effective than psychodynamic therapy. A survey of a comparison of psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioral studies of personality disorder treatments found: "no statistically significant differences between the short-term dynamic psychotherapy group and cognitive therapy group were found on any measure for any time period. In one group: "two years after treatment, 54% of the short-term dynamic psychotherapy patients and 42% of the cognitive therapy patients had recovered symptomatically," and other comparative studies yielded no difference between the two therapies (Park, 2006, p.5).

While both psychodynamic approaches to therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapies tend to be highly directive, and require a probing and involved therapist, humanistic therapy, which was in vogue during the 1960s before cognitive-behavioral therapy rose in popularity has a very non-directive approach. Also known as person-centered or client-centered, Rogerian therapy, it "places much of the responsibility for the treatment process on the client, with the therapist taking a nondirective role" Person-centered therapy, 2009, Mind disorders). However, although effective with some clients: "Person-centered therapy, however, appears to be slightly less effective than other forms of humanistic therapy in which therapists offer more advice to clients and suggest topics to explore," as the client may use the therapy sessions more to complain or go over old grievances, than use the therapy to move forward in his or her life (Person-centered therapy, 2009, Mind disorders).