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Standard Area: Treatment of Psychological Disorders

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Content Standards After concluding this unit, students understand:
1. Prominent methods used to treat people with disorders
2. Types of practitioners who implement treatment
3. Legal and ethical challenges involved in delivery of treatment

Content Standards With Performance Standards and Suggested Performance Indicators
CONTENT STANDARD 1: Prominent methods used to treat people with disorders
Students are able to (performance standards):

1.1 Describe availability and appropriateness of various modes of treatment for people with psychological disorders. Students may indicate this by (performance indicators):
• Identifying major treatment orientations used in therapy, such as behavioral, cognitive, psychoanalytic, humanistic, feminist, and biomedical
• Distinguishing psychotherapy from medical intervention and spiritual support
• Describing different treatment formats, such as individual, couples, group, systems
• Explaining how different treatment orientations will influence the therapy plan
• Discussing how theoretical orientations may promote specific treatment biases

1.2 Describe characteristics of effective treatment and prevention.

Students may indicate this by (performance indicators):
• Characterizing early attempts to reduce psychological symptoms and speculate about their likelihood of success
• Discussing credibility of treatment based upon cultural explanations or beliefs about abnormality or causation of illness
• Speculating about factors that prompt ethnic minority group members to stay or leave treatment (sometimes characterized as "premature termination") provided in state or county mental health facilities
• Identifying criteria for evaluating successful treatment
• Discussing validity of findings of research methods with different cultural groups
• Citing evidence for success of a treatment intervention
• Describing prevention strategies that build resilience and promote competence

CONTENT STANDARD 2: Types of practitioners who implement treatment
Students are able to (performance standards):

2.1 Identify therapists according to training. Students may indicate this by (performance indicators):
• Differentiating various types of intervention specialists: psychologist versus psychiatrist versus counselor versus social worker
• Arguing about the advantages and disadvantages of different types of practitioners
• Exploring how credibility of treatment professionals or healers varies among diverse groups of people

2.2 Describing strategies for locating appropriate therapists.

Students may indicate this by (performance indicators):
• Locating care providers through established systems, such as local mental health associations, hospitals, and mental health clinics
• Incorporating the idea of matching the presenting problem to the orientation and expertise of the care provider
• Speculating about why disenfranchised group members might mistrust mental health professionals in traditional settings
• Discussing validity of findings of research methods with different cultural groups

CONTENT STANDARD 3: Legal and ethical challenges involved in delivery of treatment
Students are able to (performance standards):

3.1 Describe the intersection between mental health and law. Students may indicate this by (performance indicators):
• identifying conflicts between individual rights and rights of society, as illustrated by deinstitutionalization and commitment proceedings
• Distinguishing "competent to stand trial" versus "legally insane" status
• Identifying historic or fictional examples involving mental health judgments in legal settings

3.2 Examine the influence of law on the practice of psychotherapy.

Students may indicate this by (performance indicators):
• Identifying the therapist’s ethical obligation to practice competently
• Describing how confidentiality regulations protect client privacy
• Explaining right to treatment as well as right to refuse treatment