orders are caused by actual pathology of the brain and nervous system. These ther-
apies recognize that the suffering individual often has a genetic tendency toward a
disorder, an imbalance in neurotransmitters, a hormone problem, an infection, or
similar difficulties at a biological level.
Drug therapyis the most common form of biologically based therapy. It is
characterized by the prescription of certain chemical agents that have been shown
to either eliminate or reduce the severity of symptoms associated with various
mental disorders.
(a) What therapies are based on the assumption that mental disorders are caused by emo-
tional conflicts, maladaptive learning, cognitive errors, or similar behavioral processes?
(b) What therapies are based on the assumption that mental disorders are caused by actual
pathology of the brain and nervous system?
Answers: (a) Psychologically based therapies; (b) Biologically based therapies.
Psychodynamic Therapy: Exploring Unconscious Roots
Psychodynamic therapyis any kind of psychotherapy that attempts to reduce
suffering by exploring the unconscious roots of a mental-emotional problem. Psy-
chodynamic therapy has its origins in Freud’s psychoanalysis. Accordingly, a
description of the psychoanalytic process follows.
Free association is the principal “digging” tool used by psychoanalysis.
Free association consists of saying anything that comes to mind without a con-
cern for logic or the appropriateness of the content. In classical psychoanalysis,
this is accomplished while reclining on a couch. The aim of free association is to
dredge up from the unconscious level a fund of information that can be discussed
and understood, with the help of the therapist, at a conscious level. In the last
fifteen or twenty minutes of a fifty-minute session, the patient sits up and inter-
pretations are made of the memories and ideas obtained by free association.
An interpretationconsists of making sense of content that has been repressed
at the unconscious level. Usually the therapist makes the interpretation, but there
is room for discussion. The patient should play an active role in modifying the
interpretation. If a patient accepts an interpretation that has important meaning,
then the patient often experiences an insight,a sudden burst of understanding. It
is believed that insights into the self have therapeutic power.
Interpretations are also made of slips of the tongue, dreams, and various kinds
of transference. Slips of the tongueare speech errors that reveal a forbidden
wish. According to Freud, there are no “innocent” errors. They all have uncon-
Therapy: Helping Troubled People 233
