Topic 5.5 Treatment of Psychological Disorders: describe the major approaches to treatment, including psychodynamic, humanistic, behavioral, cognitive, and biomedical therapies, and the formats and ethics of treatment.

What this topic is asking

Topic 5.5 covers how psychological disorders are treated. The College Board wants the major psychotherapies (psychodynamic, humanistic, behavioral, cognitive, and cognitive-behavioral), the biomedical treatments (drugs, ECT, TMS), and the formats and ethics of treatment.

Psychotherapies

Each major perspective from Topic 5.3 has a matching therapy:

• Psychodynamic (psychoanalysis): aims to bring unconscious conflicts into awareness, using free association, dream analysis, and interpretation of resistance and transference.
• Humanistic (person-centered, Rogers): uses unconditional positive regard, empathy, genuineness, and active listening to help clients grow and accept themselves.
• Behavioral: treats the symptom as a learned behavior. Systematic desensitization and exposure therapy treat phobias by pairing relaxation with gradual exposure to the feared stimulus (counterconditioning). Aversive conditioning pairs an unwanted behavior with discomfort. Token economies apply operant rewards for desired behavior.
• Cognitive: changes maladaptive thoughts (for example through cognitive restructuring or Beck's therapy for depression).
• Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT): combines cognitive restructuring with behavioral change; one of the most effective and widely used therapies.

Biomedical treatments

When biology is the target, treatments act directly on the brain and body:

• Drug therapies: antidepressants (often SSRIs, which raise serotonin activity), antianxiety drugs, antipsychotics (for schizophrenia), and mood stabilizers such as lithium for bipolar disorder.
• Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT): brief electrical stimulation of the brain under anesthesia, used for severe, treatment-resistant depression.
• Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS): a non-invasive technique using magnetic fields to stimulate brain regions, also used for depression.
• Psychosurgery (such as the historical lobotomy) is now rare.

Formats, ethics, and the eclectic approach

Therapy occurs in different formats: individual, group, family, and couples therapy. Many clinicians use an eclectic approach, drawing on whichever techniques best fit the client. Treatment is governed by ethical standards, including informed consent, confidentiality, and competence.

The organizing logic of this topic is that the treatment follows from how the disorder is explained, which ties it directly back to Topic 5.3. A psychodynamic view yields psychoanalysis; a behavioral view yields exposure and token economies; a cognitive view yields cognitive restructuring; a biological view yields drugs, ECT, and TMS. The exam frequently gives a technique and asks for the approach, or describes a disorder and asks which treatment fits, so the skill is to map each named technique to its parent perspective. Systematic desensitization (behavioral), free association (psychodynamic), unconditional positive regard (humanistic), and SSRIs (biomedical) are the highest-yield pairings. The eclectic approach and CBT show that, in practice, the best treatment often blends approaches, and the ethics material reminds you that therapy is a regulated, consent-based relationship.

Try this

Q1. Describe systematic desensitization and the disorder it commonly treats. [2 points]

• Cue. Pairing deep relaxation with a gradual hierarchy of fear-provoking stimuli to treat phobias; it is a behavioral exposure technique.

Q2. Name the biomedical treatment reserved for severe, treatment-resistant depression. [1 point]

• Cue. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).