Assignment of Clinical Psychology
Assignment of Clinical Psychology
C. Psychosurgery
It is a treatment in which brain tissue is destroyed with the aim
of alleviating the symptoms of a psychological disorder. It has
also been called “functional neurosurgery.” Psychosurgery is a
drastic step typically only taken in the absence of any other
successful treatment (and sometimes not even then), because it
is a major challenge to remove harmful tissue without
impacting the brain tissue necessary to retain full neural
function.
There are many types of psychosurgery. Many end in “-omy,”
the Latin root used in surgeries to indicate the removal of
something:-
Cingulotomy
Cingulotomy is a surgical procedure that severs the
supracallosal fibers of the cingulum bundle, which pass
through the anterior cingulate gyrus. This surgery is used to
treat obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and depression.
Subcaudate Tractotomy
Subcaudate tractotomy is a surgery to sever the fibers
connecting the orbitofrontal cortex to the hypothalamus. It is
used primarily for depression and OCD.
Limbic Leucotomy
The limbic leucotomy combines the cingulotomy and
subcaudate tractotomy procedures. It was hypothesized that
making two lesions would produce better results, but the rate
of effectiveness is still approximately the same as the
subcaudate tractotomy procedure alone.
Corpus Callosotomy
Corpus callosotomy is a palliative surgical procedure for the
treatment of seizures, as seen in epilepsy. Because the corpus
callosum is critical to the spread of epileptic activity between
brain hemispheres, the goal of this procedure is to eliminate
this pathway. The corpus callosum is severed, after which the
brain has much more difficulty sending messages between the
hemispheres, although some limited interhemispheric
communication is still possible.
Deep-Brain Stimulation
● History of Psychosurgery
This treatment approach began in the late 1800s under the
Swiss psychiatrist Gottlieb Burckhardt, and continued into the
mid 1930s under Portuguese neurologist Antonio Egas Moniz
with the leucotomy. A leucotomy is the cutting of white nerve
fibers in the brain, and is also known as a prefrontal lobotomy.
In the United States, neuropsychiatrist Walter Freeman and
neurosurgeon James W. Watts devised what became the
standard prefrontal procedure and named their operative
technique “lobotomy.” In spite of Moniz’s Nobel Prize in 1949,
the use of psychosurgery declined during the 1950s. By the
1970s the standard lobotomy was very rare, but other forms of
psychosurgery were occurring on a smaller scale.
● Efficacy of Psychosurgery
Psychosurgery has a low rate of efficacy relative to the risks of
the procedures. For example, cingulotomies have been found
to be only about 30% percent effective. Subcaudate
tractotomies have been found to be effective about 50% of the
time, as have limbic leucotomy.
➢ Chemotherapy-
Chemotherapy is a form of medical treatment that uses
powerful chemicals, to treat life-threatening diseases like
cancer. Cancer cells usually grow and divide faster than normal
cells. It usually works by keeping the cancer cells from
growing, dividing, and making more cells and creating a toxic
environment in the body that targets and kills the cancer cells
without doing permanent damage to the body itself. This type
of treatment is delivered intravenously (through the
bloodstream) or by pills and while highly effective frequently
has negative, but temporary, side-effects such as nausea, hair
loss and physical weakness.
Doctors use chemotherapy in different ways at different times.
These include:
● Before surgery or radiation therapy to shrink tumors. This
is called neoadjuvant chemotherapy.
● After surgery or radiation therapy to destroy any remaining
cancer cells. This is called adjuvant chemotherapy.
● As the only treatment. For example, to treat cancers of the
blood or lymphatic system, such as leukemia and
lymphoma.
● For cancer that comes back after treatment, called
recurrent cancer.
● For cancer that has spread to other parts of the body, called
metastatic cancer.
➔ References:-
● Kramer, G. P., Bernstein, D. A., & Phares, V. (2014).
Introduction to clinical psychology (8thEd.). Pearson.
● Boundless Psychology. (n.d.). Retrieved June 02, 2021,
from
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-psychology/
chapter/types-of-biomedical-therapy/
SUBMITTED BY-
PRAMJEET SINGH
190438