Application: non-biological treatment of one specific disorder

Behaviourist→ systematic desensitisation

The process teaches a person to gradually confront their fear, it is carried out in stages and the patient practices relaxation techniques at each stage to calm themselves down after an anxiety provoking stimulus is introduced.

McGrath + Lucy:

• 10 year old girl with a phobia of loud noises + balloons/party poppers

• Taught her to imagine herself playing with her toys at home, over the course of 10 sessions she gradually decreased her fear from a self rating of 7/10 to 3/10- balloons popping and 0/10 to 3/10- party popping

Behaviourist→ flooding

• Present the feared object directly.

• The immediate fear response caused by adrenaline isnt sustainable and will eventually calm down by itself.

• Feeling of calm can then be associated with the feared object.

• However this can cause panic + reinforcement of the phobias rather than extinguish it, especially if the person is allowed to leave the situation before their adrenaline levels have naturally reduced.

Behaviourist→ aversion therapy

• Can be used to produce an unpleasant association like nausea in alcohol addiction- drug called emetic can make people sick.

• Repeated pairings will result in a learned response of aversion to alcohol.

Can behaviourist therapies work for psychotic disorders?

• Paul and Lentz showed that patients with schizophrenia who were given therapy based on social learning theory together with operant conditioning were 2x likelier to be discharged from hospital + 10x likelier to be living independently than patients who had standard drug treatment.

Cognitive→ rational emotive therapy

• Specific type of cognitive therapy proposed by Ellis.

• RET is looking for beliefs/thoughts which are irrational/unhelpful to us. May be seen in the way they speak e.g. awfulizing, musterbations

• The client is helped to understand how these beliefs are contributing to their illness, and helped to identify an alternative way of processing a situation which in turn should change their behaviour.

PROBLEM

A- Activating event (phobic stimulation)

B- Beliefs (about stimulus)

C- Consequencs (actions to avoid stimulus

SOLUTION

D- Disputing (questioning the irrational beliefs)

E- Effects (restructured thoughts hopefully helping the person to cope)