Post an explanation of whether psychotherapy has a biological basis. Explain how culture, religion, and socioeconomics might influence one’s perspective on the value of psychotherapy treatments. Describe how legal and ethical considerations for group and family therapy differ from those for individual therapy and explain how these differences might impact your therapeutic approaches for clients in group, individual, and family therapy. Support your rationale with at least three peer-reviewed, evidence-based sources and explain why each of your supporting sources is considered scholarly. Attach the PDFs of your sources.
Biological Basis and Ethical/Legal Considerations of Psychotherapy
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Biological Basis and Ethical/Legal Considerations of Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy is a biological treatment, which captures a range of biological regulations of the brain complexes. Psychotherapy affects how the brain develops, and operates. It facilitates the deactivation of the maladaptive brain mappings resulting in the development of new and constructive pathways facilitating healing and recovery among patients Javanabkht & Alberini, 2019). Successful psychotherapy ensures that the patients develop comprehensive, measurable, lasting physical changes in the brain.
Culture, religion, and socio-economic factors are likely to affect the value of psychotherapy treatments. Patients with limited finances are likely to have limited access to psychotherapists due to the inability to cater to the costs of services. Culture and religion affect people’s ideas or feelings, which can influence the patient’s and counselor’s communication skills, interpretations, personalities, and even social-cultural beliefs (Koc & Kafa, 2018). For example, some cultural and religious beliefs may hinder some patients from discussing some topics with therapists, especially on mental health issues. Patients may be unable to express their illnesses openly resulting in limited and ineffective care models.
Group and family therapy legal and ethical considerations differ based on distinct characteristics. Group therapy poses issues such as privacy and confidentiality from the group members while family therapy possesses issues to do with conflicts of interests between the family members, which could negatively affect their relations. Family therapy aims at enabling the family members to solve conflicts, and have an understanding of how thought distortions about one another could result in erroneous thinking, and impaired interactions (Finney & Tadros, 2019). As compared to family and group therapies, individual therapy is conducted in the presence of the therapists and the client. It, therefore, does not pose issues related to privacy and confidentiality or conflicts of interest since the privacy laws that the counselor must comply with protect the client.
The above issues on privacy, confidentiality, and conflicts of interests are likely to influence how I would handle clients in a group, family, or family therapy. For example, I would need the participants to sign consent forms agreeing to accord high levels of confidentiality and privacy to the rest. Similarly, I would try to create a safe environment for all family members without favoritism to minimize conflicts and improve communication.
References
Finney, N., & Tadros, E. (2019). Integration of structural family therapy and dialectical behavior therapy with high-conflict couples. The Family Journal, 27(1), 31-36.
Javanbakht, A., & Alberini, C. M. (2019). Editorial: Neurobiological Models of Psychotherapy. Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience, 13, 144. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2019.00144
Koç, V., & Kafa, G. (2019). Cross-cultural research on psychotherapy: the need for a change. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 50(1), 100-115.