Biomedical Treatments(Crash Course Psychology #36)- Summary

 Biomedical Treatments: Crash Course Psychology #36

Introduction: Does Psychotherapy Work? 


  • Psychotherapy's effectiveness is assessed by asking clients about their progress and using scientifically rigorous methods to determine if a treatment works 


  • Biomedical treatments, such as medications and magnetic stimulation, are also used to treat psychological disorders 


Client & Clinician Perceptions 


  • Client perceptions of treatment effectiveness can be subjective and may be influenced by their relationship with their therapist 


  • Clinician perspectives can also be skewed due to self-serving bias and limited visibility into a client's long-term progress 


Treatment Outcome Research 


  • Treatment outcome research uses methods like randomized clinical trials to systematically measure the effectiveness of therapies 


  • Meta-analysis is used to gather data from multiple trials and determine whether a treatment works across different settings 


Effectiveness vs. Efficacy 


  • Effectiveness refers to a therapy's success in real-world settings, while efficacy refers to its success compared to other interventions or controls 


  • Psychotherapy has been shown to be both effective and efficacious in numerous studies 


Biomedical Therapies 


  • Biomedical therapies aim to change the brain's electrochemical state using psychotropic drugs, magnetic impulses, or electrical currents 


  • Pharmacotherapy is the most widely used biomedical therapy, with psychotropic drugs falling into categories like antipsychotics, anxiolytics, antidepressants, and mood stabilizers 


"Electro-Shock" or Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) 


  • Electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT, is a treatment that involves sending a brief electrical current through the brain of an anesthetized patient to relieve severe, treatment-resistant depression 


  • ECT can help relieve negative symptoms by altering neurotransmitter activity, modifying stress hormone activity, or re-activating dormant neurons 


  • The exact reason why ECT helps is not known, but several theories are being pursued 


Other Biomedical Therapies: rTMS & DBS 


  • Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, rTMS, is a painless treatment that involves the application of repeated electromagnetic pulses 


  • Deep-brain stimulation, DBS, is a more invasive treatment that involves surgically implanting a "brain pacemaker" to send electrical impulses to specific parts of the brain 


  • Both rTMS and DBS are hypothesized to jump-start the neural circuitry in a depressed brain 


Lifestyle Changes


  • Daily aerobic exercise, adequate sleep, social interaction, and good nutrition can help manage moods and improve mental health. 


  • Thirty to sixty minutes of daily aerobic exercise has been shown to be as effective as antidepressant medications in research on mild depression 


  • General healthy living can help improve mental health, and what works for one person may not work for another 

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