Self-Defeating Behaviors: Treatment and Therapies

A prime poster boy for narcissistic personality disorder subject H was a middle aged Iranian man in the midst of drug rehabilitation. It is common for people with NPD to become dependent on substances due to their necessity to cope with inadequacy.(Donaldson-Pressman, The Narcissistic Family 1994) Like many people with NPD he was very handsome and held a demanding presence.(DSM) H’s symptoms were first noticed by his therapist during a group talk session. H was noted to recount stories of vicious spousal abuse (throwing his ex-wife out of a moving car in rage) and robberies he committed against family members at gunpoint, with a sense of pride and content. H’s therapist decided to see how he interacted with his parents in order to develop a better diagnosis. His therapist Stras describes the session:

The aforementioned client described problems with low self-esteem, feelings of constant failure whilst belittling the reported achievements in his life; and feeling the need to constantly better himself. When we tried to formulate the problem collaboratively, we were able to establish that his thoughts were: negative, discounting success, black and white and following rigid rules. He experienced feelings of low mood and exhaustion and noted that his behaviours involved constant checking, trying to multi task, being over thorough, making lists that were unrealistic to achieve and tendencies to avoid tasks and

humanistic therapy are two approach that psychologist use one a daily. Both therapy come with

     While there have been no outwardly successful treatments for Antisocial Personality Disorder, many of the disorders’ individuals never seek treatment alone, as they see no reason to conform to the rules of society with which they find no satisfaction. Instead, the individual will be prompted by his family or friends, or will be forced by a court system to seek treatment, and then will usually comply, and will consent to treatment. Much of the recent treatment for Antisocial Personality Disorder has been behavioral, and has not been based around biological or medicinal findings.

PO was on time and moderately participated in the group activities. PO demonstrated an understanding of the topic by sharing some of his personal maladaptive thinking with peers, such as “I made excuses for everything to justify my behavior. I tried to convince myself and others that I am a victim.” PO had a positive response to treatment, and appears to be in the action stage of change.

The intervention model that will be used for therapy session is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). According to Rabinowitz and Cochran (2002), “CBT is a psychotherapeutic approach that addresses dysfunctional emotions, maladaptive behaviors and cognitive processes and

Behavioural therapy looks at the way people act and respond when they are distressed or under pressure. It helps to modify unhelpful behaviours such as avoidance, which may exacerbate the problems or the way the client feels. This usually means gradually facing up to feared and avoided situations e.g. Demi’s self-harm and bulimia. As a consequence, new behaviours to deal with problems and situations are learned.

Self defeating behaviours are present in every person on earth once they have developed enough and are able to copy, consequently our parents and siblings contribute In this essay I intend to describe what self defeating behaviours are, how they arise and describe how cognitive behaviour therapy and/or a person centred approach can be helpful in treating the client who presents for therapy to make changes to their lives.

of therapy you would recommend. Be specific: Rather than recommending “a behavioral approach” state whether

Psychotherapy therapy focuses on the personal and interpersonal issues underlying depression. It explores an individual's life to bring to light possible contributing causes of the present depression. During treatment, the therapist helps the patient to become aware of his or her thinking patterns and how they came to be. There are several different subtypes of psychotherapy, but all have the common goal of helping the individual develop healthy problem solving and coping skills. Two of the most widely used treatment methods are cognitive-behavioral therapy and interpersonal therapy (Hammen 141).

One of the treatments family therapy I am familiar with for it what I researched for my first paper for this class. I know that family therapy is effective for severe and complex disorders such as Schizophrenia, substance abuse, dementia, anorexia ,

While the media definitely plays a role in how we view ourselves, anorexia is a way of coping with what’s going on in a teen’s life. Stress, pain, anger, acceptance, confusion and fear can all become triggers for this debilitating eating disorder. The goal is one of trying to make their whole life better.

What factors need to be taken into account when considering this type of therapy approach?

“Self-defeating behaviour is the idea that sometimes people knowingly do things that will cause them to fail or bring them trouble. It is defined as “any deliberate or intentional behaviour that has clear, definitely or probably negative effects on the self or on the self’s projects.” The concept of and theories behind why a person behaves in ways that are self-defeating is one that has been examined by many psychological approaches over time. In this essay I will define and explain self-defeating behaviours, their origins, causes and reasons for maintaining them, together with examples of such behaviours. Subsequently I will focus on two approaches to

During the following three decades, numerous innovative treatment and intervention methods and standpoints were presented as opposed to the customary psychodynamic approachs. Of the many approaches to clinical psychology, four are major and consist of the behavioral, cognitive-behavioral, humanistic, and family classifications. By employing these four major approaches the effectiveness of treatment is heightened (Plante, 2011).