Psychology for Dummies (78 page)

Does psychoanalysis actually work? Do people get better, or do they end up going to their analysis indefinitely? A large study conducted by
Consumer Reports
in 1996 found that people who go to any form of psychotherapy all report feeling generally better as a result, regardless of the type of therapy. But psychoanalysis is typically a long form of therapy, and today, many people don’t have the time or the money to invest in such a long and expensive enterprise. Some studies show that people do get better with psychoanalysis when compared to people who get no help at all.

However, psychoanalysis is not recommended for certain problems, such as schizophrenia, and patients, such as individuals who are developmentally delayed or who have significant language difficulties. There are, however, forms of therapy for people with schizophrenia, people with cognitive limitations, or those who have limited funds or inadequate insurance coverage. That therapy is generally shorter and thus cheaper, such as cognitive therapy. (See Chapter 20 for more on cognitive therapy.) I guess the thing to keep in mind is how much time and money you have at your disposal.

Insurance can drive you crazy

Insurance companies and employee assistance programs (EAPs) do not typically pay for long-term therapy but instead offer a scaled-down version that, in my professional opinion, rarely gets the job done. This is not to say that short-term therapy is ineffective, but to expect change from two to six sessions of any form of therapy is ridiculous. Short-term therapy is typically anywhere from 12 to 18 sessions. Serious mental problems cannot be addressed in such a truncated format.

Learning better behaviors

Thinking better

Combining two approaches

Behavior therapy
emphasizes the current conditions that maintain a behavior, the conditions that keep it going. This form of therapy focuses on the problem, not on the person. A psychology professor who I once had, Elizabeth Klonoff, likened behavior therapy to a weed-pulling process. Psychoanalysts attempt to pull the weed up by its roots so that it’ll never come back, but behavior therapists pluck the weed from the top, and if it grows back, they pluck it again. The origins of a problem are not as important as the conditions that keep it going. Who cares how you started smoking. The important part is the factors that keep you smoking.

Behavior therapy is based on the learning theories of Ivan Pavlov’s
classical conditioning,
B.F. Skinner’s
operant conditioning,
and Albert Bandura’s
social learning theory.
All behavior is learned, whether it’s healthy or abnormal.
Learning,
in the classical-conditioning sense, refers to associations formed between events or actions.
Learning,
in the operant-conditioning sense, refers to the process of increasing the likelihood of a behavior occurring or not occurring based on its consequences. “Learning” in the social learning theory sense refers to learning things by watching other people. For more on learning theories, see Chapters 8 and 9.

These days, it’s pretty hard to argue that smoking is not bad for a person’s health. I think most people now accept the unhealthy aspects of smoking as fact, but some just choose to ignore this information. Smoking is a good example of an unhealthy behavior that is learned. Cigarette advertisements associate sexy people and having fun with smoking (classical conditioning). Nicotine gives a pleasurable, stimulating sensation (operant conditioning). Teenagers sometimes learn to smoke by watching their parents, older siblings, or peers smoke (social leaning theory).