Exam 14: Section 1: Therapies

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The answer should include the following information: According to Aaron Beck, depressed people have an extremely negative view of the past, present, and future. Rather than realistically evaluating their situation, depressed patients have developed a negative cognitive bias, consistently distorting their experiences in a negative way. Some examples of cognitive biases in depression include arbitrary inference, selective abstraction, overgeneralization, magnification and minimization, and personalization. Arbitrary inference occurs when you draw a negative conclusion when there is little or no evidence to support it. Selective abstraction occurs when you focus on a single negative detail taken out of context while ignoring the more important aspects of the situation. Overgeneralization occurs when you draw a sweeping global conclusion based on an isolated incident and apply that conclusion to other unrelated areas of life. Magnification and minimization occur when you grossly overestimate the impact of negative events and grossly underestimate the impact of positive events so that small, bad events are magnified, but good, large events are minimized. Personalization occurs when you take responsibility, blame yourself, or apply external events to yourself when there is no basis or evidence for making the connection.

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The answer should include the following information: Mary Cover Jones is widely regarded as the first behavior therapist. Her early work explored ways of reversing conditioned fears. She treated a three-year-old named Peter who was fearful of various furry objects, including a tamed rat, a fur coat, cotton, and wool. Peter was particularly afraid of a tame rabbit, so Jones's efforts focused on eliminating the rabbit fear using a procedure that has come to be known as counterconditioning. The term counterconditioning refers to the learning of a new conditioned response that is incompatible with a previously learned response. The procedure for treating Peter proceeded as follows. First, the caged rabbit was brought into Peter's view but kept far enough away to avoid eliciting fear (the original conditioned response). With the rabbit visible at a tolerable distance, Peter sat in a high chair and happily munched his favorite snack, milk and crackers. It was thought that the enjoyment of eating would naturally elicit a positive response (the desired conditioned response) that would be incompatible with the negative response of fear. Every day for almost two months, the rabbit was inched closer and closer to Peter as he ate his milk and crackers. As Peter's tolerance for the rabbit's presence gradually increased, he was eventually able to hold the rabbit in his lap, petting it with one hand while happily eating with his other hand. Peter's new tolerance for the rabbit also generalized to other furry objects, including the rat, cotton, and the fur coat.

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The answer should include the following information: Lithium is the medication most commonly used to treat bipolar disorder. Lithium counteracts manic symptoms, and to a lesser degree depressive symptoms, in bipolar patients. As a treatment for bipolar disorder, lithium can prevent acute manic episodes over the course of a week or two. Once an acute manic episode is under control, the long-term use of lithium can help prevent relapses into either mania or major depressive disorder.