Treatments - AP Psychology

Serotonin is the major neurotransmitter that regulates mood, sleep, and motivation. A lack of serotonin can lead to depression, OCD, and eating disorders. Too much serotonin can decrease motivation. Serotonin levels can be regulated through selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors, tricyclic antidepressants, and other drugs.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is a structured, short-term therapeutic technique that aims to change a client's maladaptive cognitions and behaviors into more realistic and/or adaptive ones. CBT is commonly used for those with various mood and anxiety disorders.

Free association is a common tenet of psychoanalysis that allows clients to speak for themselves. Free association allows the therapist to figure out the client's unconscious motives and desires.

Humanistic therapy focuses on boosting patient's self-fulfillment via growth in self-awareness and self-acceptance. Active listening is a technique that may be used in humanistic therapies, such as client-centered therapy, but is a tool used within that kind of therapy, not a discrete kind of therapy unto itself. The other options would be considered behavioral therapy.

Antipsychotic drugs are popular and often effective at treating symptoms of schizophrenia such as delusions or hallucinations but not the behaviors associated with the disorder. Long-term behavioral therapy is often necessary to treat behaviors that come with the mental disorder.

Lithium is the most widely used and studied medications for bipolar disorders. They also have a role in treating depression and mania, acutely and long term. Once ingested, lithium becomes prevalent in the central nervous system (CNS), and can bind to a number of receptors in order to block norepinephrine production. It can also interact with neurotransmitters in order to cause a release of seratonin.

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are commonly used to treat mood disorders. The other choices are used for other types of mental illnesses.

SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) are commonly prescribed for depressed patients to increase the amount of serotonin in their bodies. Having a greater amount of serotonin is associated with experiencing more positive emotions.

Lithium is typically used to treat the manic symptomology associated with bipolar disorder.

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors interfere with serotonin transport in the brain's synapses and can work to elevate mood. SSRIs are used to treat depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Treatment for personality disorders with SSRIs is not successful.

Benzodiazepines such as Xanax, Klonopin, Ativan, and Valium, act like sedatives, but without their sleep-inducing effect. These medications can be effective in the treatment of panic disorders.

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) such as Zoloft, Paxil, and Luvox, are mood stabilizers and are used to treat depression. Nardil is a monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI) useful in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder by reducing nightmares and insomnia. Catapres and Inderal, which are antiadrenergic agents, are also useful in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder. Antiadrenergic agents reduce startle reactions. Lithium is a mood stabilizer used to treat bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

Depressants are drugs that reduce neural activity and slow down bodily functions. Cocaine is a stimulant, which increases neural activity and speeds up bodily functions. All of the other answer choices are depressants.

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) block the reabsorption of serotonin in the brain to help ease depressive symptoms. Some of the most popular SSRIs are Zoloft (Sertraline) and Prozac (Fluoxetine).

While the other conditions—MDD, bedwetting, OCD, and PDD—are all FDA-approved for various first-generation and second-generation tricyclic medications, panic disorder is still an off-label use for TCAs. Currently, FDA approval favors selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) for treatment of panic disorders.

MAOIs have long held a stigma of being associated with fatal dietary and adverse drug reactions—including phenylamines and anesthetic medications. Despite this stigma, recent studies have indicated that some of this longstanding research was based on outmoded or misinterpreted methodology.

MAO medication inhibits MAOs, which normally inhibit serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine, so that these neurotransmitters can increase in concentration.

SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) are used to treat depression because they block the reuptake of 5-HT serotonin, allowing it to remain in the locus coeruleus (LC) to block anxiety there.

Barbiturates and benzodiazepines are the two main types of anti-anxiety medication-- one you might have heard of is Valium. SSRIs (serotonin reuptake inhibitors) block the reuptake of serotonin into the neuron, therefore increasing the amount of serotonin in the synapatic cleft and making people feel happier since serotonin is a "feel good hormone." MAO inhibitors block monoamine oxidase from transporting "feel good hormones" from the brain, thereby increasing their availability and making people feel happier. SSRIs and MAO inhibitors are used to treat major depressive disorder and lithium is used to treat bipolar disorder.

SSRI's, or Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, inhibit reuptake of serotonin, and therefore increases the availability of serotonin in the brain. SSRIs are the most common treatment for clinical depression.

Benzos enhance the effect of the neurotransmitter GABA. The GABA neurotransmitter suppresses the activity of nerves. By enhancing it's function, overactive nerve signals that are believed to increase anxiety are calmed down.