16.2 Types of Treatment — How Therapy Actually Rewires Your Brain | Psychology 2e

• Understand the universal feeling of repeating mistakes and the goal of therapy to change behavior.
• Learn the two primary categories of psychological treatment: psychotherapy and biomedical therapy.
• Explore Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis, its historical roots, and focus on repressed childhood traumas.
• Understand 'resistance' as the unconscious blocking of painful memories during therapy.
• Learn about 'transference,' where patients project past relationship emotions onto the therapist.
• Discover play therapy as a method for children to express and resolve psychological difficulties.
• Understand behavior therapy's focus on changing undesirable behaviors through learning principles.
• Learn how classical conditioning is used in behavior therapy to change involuntary responses.
• Understand aversive conditioning, which pairs an undesirable behavior with an unpleasant stimulus.
• Learn about exposure therapy and reciprocal inhibition for treating phobias by associating fear with relaxation.
• Discover systematic desensitization, a structured exposure therapy for adults using anxiety hierarchies.
• Understand how virtual reality is used in exposure therapy to treat conditions like PTSD.
• Learn the core idea of CBT: emotional distress comes from interpretations, not external situations.
• Identify cognitive distortions and understand the ABC model (Action, Belief, Consequence) in CBT.
• Recognize the strong empirical evidence supporting CBT's effectiveness for various psychological issues.
• Explore Carl Rogers' humanistic therapy, focusing on self-awareness, self-acceptance, and client-centered approach.
• Understand 'unconditional positive regard' as the core of humanistic therapy for fostering self-acceptance.
• Learn that the therapeutic alliance is key to success, and understand evidence-based practice (EBP).
• Understand biomedical therapies, which use medication or procedures to alter the central nervous system.
• Learn how SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors) work to treat depression.
• Identify other psychotropic medications like antipsychotics and mood stabilizers and their functions.
• Understand that psychotropic medications manage symptoms but have significant biological costs and side effects.
• Learn about ECT as a last-resort intervention for severe depression, inducing a brief seizure.
• Discover TMS as a newer, non-invasive alternative to ECT without memory loss.
• Consider the philosophical question of whether mind or body is in the 'driver's seat' of healing.
• Up next in “Psychology 2e — Full Course (OpenStax) | Intro Psychology Lectures”16.3 Treatment Modalities — One Size Does Not Fit All | Psychology 2e

This lesson dives into the major types of psychological and biomedical treatments covered in Section 16.2 of OpenStax Psychology 2e. From Freud's psychoanalysis and play therapy to behavior therapy, CBT, humanistic therapy, and biomedical interventions like SSRIs and ECT, the video walks through how each approach works — and why. Along the way, vivid examples (a child's bedwetting alarm, Peter's rabbit phobia, Jayden's elevator fear, and the ABC model) make the core concepts concrete and memorable. In this video: • Psychoanalysis: how Freud used free association, resistance, and transference to excavate unconscious childhood conflicts • Play therapy: how children process trauma through sand trays and figurines instead of talk therapy • Behavior therapy: classical conditioning applied to real problems, illustrated by Emmy's bedwetting alarm and Mary Cover Jones's cure of Peter's rabbit phobia • Systematic desensitization and aversive conditioning: Jayden's elevator hierarchy and Antabuse's conditioned aversion to alcohol • Cognitive therapy and the ABC model: how Jon and Joe's identical rejection leads to opposite emotional outcomes based on belief • Cognitive distortions explained: overgeneralization, all-or-nothing thinking, and jumping to conclusions • Biomedical therapies: how SSRIs block serotonin reuptake, how antipsychotics target dopamine, and when ECT or TMS is used as a last resort #OpenStax #Psychology #CBT #MentalHealth #Psychotherapy OpenStax Content adapted from "OpenStax Psychology 2e", by OpenStax licensed under CC BY 4.0. Content based on Web Version: Apr 23, 2026. Read the textbook online https://openstax.org/details/books/psychology-2e Music first girl talking to me. by ikkun (ex. Barradeen) | https://soundcloud.com/ikkunwastaken Royalty Free Music by https://www.free-stock-music.com Creative Commons / Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en_US