Understanding Psychology (10th Ed)

 Answers to Evaluate Questions 
1. 
1-b, 2-c, 3-d, 4-a; 
2. 
humanistic; 3. 
a; 4. 
spontaneous r
emission
 Module 
50 
Psychotherapy: Humanistic, Interpersonal, and Group Approaches to Treatment 
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Key Concept 
How are drug, electroconvul-
sive, and psychosurgical 
techniques used today in the 
treatment of psychological 
disorders?
M O D U L E 5 1 
Biomedical Therapy: Biological 
Approaches to Treatment
If you get a kidney infection, your doctor gives you an antibiotic; with luck your 
kidney should be as good as new about a week later. If your appendix becomes 
infl amed, a surgeon removes it and your body functions normally once more. Could 
a comparable approach that focuses on the body’s physiology be effective for psy-
chological disturbances? 
According to biological approaches to treatment, the answer is yes. Therapists 
routinely use biomedical therapies. This approach suggests that rather than focusing 
on a patient’s psychological confl icts, past traumas, or environmental factors that 
may produce abnormal behavior, focusing treatment directly on brain chemistry and 
other neurological factors may be more appropriate. To do this, therapists can pro-
vide treatment with drugs, electric shock, or surgery.
Drug Therapy
 Drug therapy,  the control of psychological disorders through drugs, works by altering 
the operation of neurotransmitters and neurons in the brain. Some drugs operate by 
inhibiting neurotransmitters or receptor neurons, which reduces activity at particular 
synapses, the sites where nerve impulses travel from one neuron to another. Other 
drugs do just the opposite: They increase the activity of certain neurotransmitters or 
neurons, which allows particular neurons to fi re more frequently (see Figure 1 ).