Chapter 11. Treatment of Psychological Disorders
The majority of this textbook exposed you to the many intricacies of our brain and behavior, but little time has been spent detailing what comes next. What do you do when you’ve spent most of your life conditioning yourself to associate an event or object with a negative emotion? Or when, as you grow into adolescence, you notice your feelings start to change and you feel as if nobody understands you anymore? Or, maybe, when your relationship with a loved one starts to bend under the tension? Our knee-jerk reaction would be to recommend treatment, but what is treatment? Which treatment? Treat what, exactly? And how? There are just as many combinations of treatments as there are mental illnesses. It is never as simple as 1 + 1 = 2 to treat an individual. A problem has to be pin-pointed and an adequate solution has to be determined. Sometimes, that problem will be influenced by many different aspects, which is why treatments and therapies are often combined to cover the most ground. This chapter will explore psychological, biological, and alternative approaches to therapy.
