Behavior Therapy
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Behavior Therapy:
A set of clinical procedures relying on experimental findings of psychological research.
Based on principles of learning that are applied systematically.
Treatment goals are specific and measurable.
Focusing on the client’s current problems.
To help people change maladaptive to adaptive behaviors.
The therapy is largely educational; teaching clients skills of self-management.
Exposure Therapy:
In-Vivo Desensitization:
Brief and gradual exposure to an actual fear situation or event.
Flooding:
Prolonged & intensive in vivo or imaginal exposure to stimuli that evoke high levels of anxiety, without the opportunity to avoid them.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR):
An exposure-based therapy that involves imaginal flooding, cognitive restructuring and the use of rhythmic eye movements and bilateral stimulation to treat traumatic stress disorders and fearful memories of clients.
4 Aspects of Behavior therapy:
Classical Conditioning:
In classical conditioning certain respondent behaviors, such as knee jerks and salivation, are elicited from a passive organism.
Operant Conditioning:
Focuses on actions that operate on the environment to produce consequences.
If the environmental change brought about by the behavior is reinforcing, the chances are strengthened that the behavior will occur again.
If the environmental changes produce no reinforcement, the chances are lessened that the behavior will recur.
Social-Learning Approach:
Gives prominence to the reciprocal interactions between an individual’s behavior and the environment.
Cognitive Behavior Therapy:
Emphasizes cognitive processes and private events (ex: self-talk) as mediators of behavior change.
Therapeutic Techniques:
Relaxation Techniques:
To cope with stress.
Ex: Muscle relaxation.
Systematic Desensitization:
For anxiety and avoidance reactions.
Gradual exposure to a feared stimuli while being in a state of continuous relaxation.
Modeling:
Observational learning.
Observer watches a model and then imitates the models behavior.
Assertion Training:
Learning to express one’s self.
Social Skills Training:
Learning to correct deficits in interpersonal skills.
Self-Management Programs:
Encourage individuals to take control of their behaviors, thoughts, and emotions to achieve personal goals.
Multimodal Therapy:
A technical eclecticism.
Intended to optimize treatment of disorders by delivering different types of therapy together.
Applied Behavior Analysis:
Training new behaviors.
Particularly effective in working with developmentally delayed individuals.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy:
Learning emotional regulation and mindfulness.
Designed for the treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder.
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Therapy:
Meditation and yoga
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy:
Learning acceptance and non-judgment of thoughts and feelings as they occur.
Application:
Treatments:
Rely on empirical support.
Emphasize self-management skills and thought restructuring.
Are typically brief.
Leaders:
Uses a brief, directive, psychoeducational approach.
Conduct behavioral assessments
Leaders and Members:
Create collaborative, precise treatment goals.
Devise a specific treatment plan to help each member meet goals.
Objectively measure treatment outcome.
Limitations:
Heavy focus on behavioral change may detract from client’s experience of emotions.
Some counselors believe the therapist’s role as a teacher deemphasizes the important relational factors in the client-therapist relationship.
Behavior therapy does not place emphasis on insight.
Behavior therapy tends to focus on symptoms rather than underlying causes of maladaptive behaviors.
There is potential for the therapist to manipulate the client using this approach.
Some clients may find the directive approach imposing or too mechanistic