BEHAVIOR THEORY

OMC Background

 This theory falls in the Behaviorism school of thought that came up as a reaction to the Psychoanalytic approach by Freud.

 J.B. Watson, emphasized the overriding importance of the environmental events, rejecting covert aspects of the individual. He claimed that all behavior could be understood as a result of learning. (Nature vs. Nurture)

 Proponents

 John Watson was the father of the Behaviorist school of thought in Psychology.

 B.F. Skinner came up with one of the aspects of Behavioral psychology, the Operant conditioning theory.

Proponents

 Ivan Pavlov came up with the Classical conditioning theory

 Albert Bandura came up with the Social Learning theory

General Assumptions

 No such thing as mind, thought, or unconscious emphasis is on observable and measurable behavior.

 No mind/body dualism.

 No such thing as personality.

 Learning principles determine those things that we see as thought, attitudes, and habits. General Assumptions

 Past influences the present, but only in as much as our past affects current reinforcement schedules.

 "Symptoms" are the consequence of reinforcement history.

 To change behavior, we must change stimulus/response relationships. Psychopathology

 This approach believes that psychological disturbances are as a result of learned maladaptive behaviors.

 Behaviorists also state that psychopathology depends on the time, place and the cultural environment.

 KEY CONCEPTS Key concepts

 Behavioral therapy is a type of psychotherapy that focuses on changing and gaining control over unwanted behaviors.

 It is based upon the principles of classical conditioning developed by Ivan Pavlov and operant conditioning developed by B. F. Skinner. Key Concepts

 Behavior therapy is most effective for the treatment of mental health problems which require some sort of behavior change, such as substance abuse, eating disorders, anxiety disorders, anger management disorders and some mood disorders. Four Aspects of Behavior Therapy

 1. Classical Conditioning In classical conditioning certain respondent behaviors, such as knee jerks and salivation, are elicited from a passive organism. UCS-Unconditioned Stimulus CS- Conditioned Stimulus NS- Neutral stimulus Classical conditioning

UCR- Unconditioned response CR- Conditioned response

UCS UCR (meat) (salivation) NS No response (bell)

Classical conditioning

UCS+ NS CR (meat + bell) (salivation

CS CR (bell) (salivation)

Counter conditioning

• Modern behaviorists have come up with what they refer to as counter conditioning which flows directly from classical conditioning.

 This aspect proposes that, anxiety is the root of most behavioral disorders.

 Anxiety is a conditioned response, it is usually elicited by thoughts associated with threatening stimuli.

Counter conditioning

 Example; Heights (UCS)= little fear(UCR) Falling (NS)= Little fear (UCR) Heights + thoughts of falling= Fear of falling to your death (UCS) (NS) (CS) Heights(CS)= Fear of falling to your death(CR)

Aspects of Behavior Therapy

• 2. 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.

Contingency management

 Modern behaviorists have expanded this theory in an attempt to explain behavioral disorders.

 They have come up with contingency management.

 This model accounts behavioral disorders to the reinforcement or lack of reinforcement of maladaptive behaviors by the individual’s environment. Contingency management

 Example;

 A woman who is a recovering alcoholic who relapses a week following her discharge from rehab, due to her family’s habit of bringing alcohol into the house.

 The family and the presence of the alcohol in this woman’s house is reinforcing the woman’s drinking problem. Steps of Contingency Management

1. State problem in behavioral terms

2. Identify behavioral objectives such as to stop drinking or reduce drinking.

3. Take baseline measures by using psychological assessment tools such as the AUDIT to get the extent of the problem.

Steps

4. Conduct naturalistic observations to help you identify the contingencies present in the client’s environment e.g. family 5. Modify existing contingencies (unforeseeable circumstances in one’s environment) such as by talking to the alcoholic’s family to ensure they stop bringing alcohol into the house in the presence of the recovering addict.

Steps

6. Monitor the results by taking regular urine tests to get the blood alcohol levels.

Four Aspects of Behavior Therapy

 3. Social Learning Approach Gives prominence to the reciprocal interactions between an individual’s behavior and the environment. Albert Bandura called this concept reciprocal determinism.

Reciprocal determinism

 This concept states that an individual’s environment causes their behavior and at the same time, the environment is caused by the individual’s behavior. Behaviour

Personal factors Environmental factors Example

 Example;

 A man might enter counseling because he cannot hold a job, his finances are poor, and he feels like a failure. One of his contentions could be that he hates work.

 If the man’s inability to hold a job has been due to poor work habits and his hatred of work, he may very well have influenced employers to not retain him as an employee.

 If his attitude at work was terrible, chances are that no manager or boss made that any easier and the situation would gradually worsen until the man was fired.

 Since outside or external stimuli can influence behavior, each job could get worse, and the man’s attitude would continue to be awful, influencing managers to dislike him.

 GOALS OF THERAPY

 It is fundamental to behavior therapy that the client should have the major say in setting treatment goals, it is important that the client is fully informed, and consents to and participates in setting goals.

Goals

 Primary goal is to help the client come up with their own treatment goals.

 Goals play a major role in behavioral therapy, they; a. create a framework to measure the treatment outcome b. give therapy direction c. provides a basis for selecting interventions.

Process of setting goals

 The following are steps to be taken by the counselor to help the client set their goals;

 1. Counselor explains the purpose of goals.

 2. Client specifies the positive changes desired as a result of counseling.

 3. Together they explore whether the goals are realistic. Process of setting goals

 4. They discuss advantages and disadvantages of the goals.

 5. On the basis of the information obtained about client-stated goals, the counselor and the client make one of the following decisions: to continue counseling, to reconsider the client’s goals, or to seek a referral.

 THERAPIST ROLE/FUNCTION Therapist Role

 Behavior therapists must assume an active, directive role in treatment.

 Behavior therapists function as teacher, director, and expert in prescribing curative procedures that will lead to improved behavior. Therapist Role

 They focus on specifics, systematically getting information about specific antecedents (past circumstances that may affect the client’s progress), the dimensions of the problem behavior, and the consequences of the problem.

 The therapist’s role is also modeling behavior for the client.

Therapist Role

 Because clients often view their therapist as worthy of emulation, they pattern attitudes, values, beliefs, and behavior after him or her.

 Therapists need to be aware of the power they play in this process.

 Behavior therapists are more self-disclosing when it benefits the motivation of the client.

Therapist Role

 Exemplified by warmth, empathy, authenticity, permissiveness, and acceptance as necessary but not sufficient conditions for behavioral change.

 TECHNIQUES OF THERAPY Techniques

 There are a number of different techniques used in behavioral therapy to help patients change their behaviors. These include:

Homework

 Behavioral homework assignments. The therapist often requests that the patient complete homework assignments between therapy sessions. These may consist of real-life behavioral experiments where patients are encouraged to try new responses to situations discussed in therapy sessions.

Behavioral Contracting

 Contingency /Behavioral contracting.

 In conjunction with the patient, the therapist outlines a written or verbal contract of desired behaviors for the patient.

 The contract may have certain positive reinforcements (rewards) associated with appropriate behaviors and negative reinforcements (punishments) associated with maladaptive behavior Exposure Treatment

 Exposure treatment is used for a variety of anxiety disorders, and it has also recently been extended to the treatment of substance-related disorders

 Exposure treatment involves presenting a patient with anxiety-producing material for a long enough time to decrease the intensity of their emotional reaction.

Exposure treatment

 Exposure treatment can be carried out in real life situations in which case its called in-vivo exposure or it can be done through imagination in which case its referred to as imaginal exposure.

 We will look at two examples of exposure treatment;

 A. Systematic desensitization

 B. Flooding Flooding

 Flooding.

 Flooding is an accelerated version of systematic desensitization, in which the patient is exposed directly to the anxiety-provoking situation that he fears most (either through mental visualization or real life contact) in an effort to extinguish the fear response.

 The person is exposed to this anxiety provoking stimuli all at once until the anxiety subsides. Systematic Desensitization

 Systematic desensitization.

 Patients are gradually exposed to a situation they fear, either in a role-playing situation or in reality.

 The therapist will employ relaxation techniques to help them cope with their fear reaction and eventually eliminate the anxiety altogether. Desensitization

 For example, a patient in treatment for agoraphobia, a fear of open or public places, will relax and then picture herself on the sidewalk outside of her house.

 The imagery gets progressively more intense until eventually, the therapist and patient approach the anxiety-producing situation in real life by visiting a mall. Desensitization

 By repeatedly pairing a desired response (relaxation) with a fear-producing situation (open, public spaces), the patient gradually becomes desensitized to the old response of fear and learns to react with feelings of relaxation. Example

 For example, someone afraid of swimming in the ocean might begin with;

 looking at photographs of the ocean,

 then watch movies of people swimming,

 then go to the beach and walk along the water's edge,

 and then work up to a full swim in the ocean.

Skills training

 Skills training techniques.

 The patient undergoes an education program to learn social, parenting, or other relevant life skills.

 STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS OF BEHAVIOR THERAPY Strengths/Contributions

 Wide variety of techniques available

 Therapy stresses ‘doing’

 Techniques have been extended to more areas of human functioning than any other therapeutic approach

 Emphasis on research into and assessment of treatment outcomes

Limitations

 Behavior therapy may change behaviors, but it does not change feelings

 Does not deal with the emotional process as fully as other approaches

 Relationship between client and therapist is discounted

ANY QUESTIONS?