Behavior Therapy

1. Behavior Therapy

2. Overview • The history of the behavioral approach can be divided into three components: classical or respondent conditioning (Pavlov and Hull), operant conditioning or behavior modification (Skinner) and cognitive behavior therapy. It is not a single system of helping but rather a family of systems. (Gilliland & James, pp. 199-200, 226)

3. Behavior Therapy • A set of clinical procedures relying on experimental findings of psychological research • Based on principles of learning that are systematically applied • 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

4. Major philosophies and nature of humans • Behavioral approaches view the client as both the producer and the product of the environment, capable of imagining which behaviors are desirable and then working to make those images a behavioral reality.

5. Exposure Therapies • In Vivo Desensitization • Brief and graduated exposure to an actual fear situation or event • Flooding • Prolonged & intensive in vivo or imaginal exposure to highly anxiety-evoking stimuli 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 other bilateral stimulation to treat traumatic stress disorders and fearful memories of clients Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy - Chapter 9 (2)

6. Classical Conditioning • In classical conditioning certain respondent behaviors, such as knee jerks and salivation, are elicited from a passive organism Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy - Chapter 9 (3)

7. 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

8. Social Learning Approach • Gives prominence to the reciprocal interactions between an individual’s behavior and the environment Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy - Chapter 9 (4)

9. Cognitive Behavior Therapy • Emphasizes cognitive processes and private events (such as client’s self-talk) as mediators of behavior change

10. Major personality constructs • No single theory of personality has been exclusively identified with behaviorism.General tenets of behavioral theory and personality: • The behavior of organisms, not mental phenomena, determine learning, attitudes, habits, and other aspects of personal development. • Personality development is deterministic. That is, the environment and experiences determine how the personality develops.Individual differences are derived from different experiences.

11. Major personality constructs • Dualisms such as mind-body, body-spirit, and body-soul have no scientific validity in the development, prediction, and control of human behavior. • Although personality development has certain genetic limitations, which are fixed, the effects of environmental and internally generated stimuli play the dominant role. (Gilliland & James, p. 201) • At the heart of personality development is behavior, stimulus, response and feedback.

12. Nature of “maladaptivity” • Maladaptive behaviors are learned and can be unlearned. Maladaptivity is specific to the culture, time, social class and situation. Maladaptive behavior is learned by either respondent or operant means to either increase positive reinforcement or decrease negative reinforcement. There are no underlying causes to maladaptivity, only behaviors. (Gilliland & James, pp. 204-206)

13. Major goals of counseling • The major goal of counseling is to help the client analyze behavior, define problems, and select goals.

14. Major techniques/strategies • Major strategies include: behavioral contracting, behavioral prescripting, role playing, assertion training, aversion therapy, satiation, token economies, and self-management, self-monitoring and self-reinforcement. (Gilliland & James, p. 207)

15. Therapeutic Techniques • Relaxation Training – to cope with stress • Systematic Desensitization – for anxiety and avoidance reactions • Modeling – observational learning • Assertion Training – social-skills training • Self-Management Programs – “giving psychology away” • Multimodal Therapy – a technical eclecticism Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy - Chapter 9 (5)

16. Major roles of counselor and client • The counselor’s role is to demonstrate accurate listening, concern, caring, acceptance and understanding the client as unique person. The counselor is also to seek to understand completely the client’s situation and to offer intervention into maladaptive behavior patterns. (Gilliland & James, p. 206) • The client’s role is to be actively involved in every phase of counseling, from the definition of their problems through the evaluation and maintenance of their adaptive behavioral patter