Behavior Therapies Module 71 Behavior Therapy Behavioristic perspective

Behavior Therapies Module 71

Behavior Therapy • Behavioristic perspective emphasizes that behavior (normal and abnormal) is learned – Not concerned about self-awareness • Applies classical and operant conditioning to the elimination of unwanted behaviors – Primary concern is to eliminate the disorder’s behavior, not find the cause of the disorder • Often called behavior modification

Behavior Therapies: Classical Conditioning Techniques

Bell & Pad Treatment for Bed Wetting • Conditioning arousal from sleep in response to bodily signals of a full bladder. • Pair an alarm (US) that will awaken child (UR). • When moisture hits pad (bladder tension = NS) the Alarm sounds (US) waking the child (UR). • Eventually bladder tension (CR) causes the child to awaken (CR). • It is effective in about 75 percent of school-age children who have difficulties with bedwetting.

Mary Cover Jones: Counterconditioning • Demonstrated that conditioning could be used to remove fears. • Treated three-year-old Peter’s fear of rabbits, using counterconditioning • Involves modifying behavior by conditioning a new response that is incompatible with a previously learned response • Jones also used social imitation, or observational learning, techniques

Exposure Therapies • Gradually expose patients to things they fear & avoid. • Through repeated exposures, anxiety lessens because they habituate to the things feared. See an example of how this done HERE

Systematic Desensitization • • Developed by Joseph Wolpe Based on counter conditioning Usually used to treat phobias Phobic responses are reduced by pairing relaxation with a series of mental images or real-life situations that the person finds progressively more fear-provoking • Uses three steps: – Progressive relaxation – using breathing techniques to relax one muscle group after another until totally relaxed – Development of anxiety hierarchy and controlled scene – Combination of progressive relaxation with anxiety hierarchy

Systematic Desensitization Process 1. Establish a hierarchy of the anxiety- triggering stimuli 2. Learning relaxation methods (progressive relaxation) 3. Slowly think through the hierarchy from least anxietyprovoking to most anxiety-provoking , working to relax whenever anxiety is felt – Once you can maintain complete relaxation, you move on to the next scene, and so on

Sample Anxiety Hierarchy for going to the Dentist

Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy • Just as effective as graduated exposure to the actual feared objects or situations • Watch “Arachnophobia” (9: 31) • Segment #31 from Scientific American Frontiers DVD

Aversive Conditioning • A type of counterconditioning that associates an unpleasant state (such as nausea) with an unwanted behavior • The person is replacing a positive (relaxing) but harmful response with a negative/aversive response • Example with alcoholism: Lace a drink with a drug that makes the person becomes sick • Aversive conditioning is not very effective – Cognition interferes – people know they won’t get sick when not taking the treatment so it doesn’t generalize over to normal life

Examples of Aversion Therapy

Behavior Therapies: Operant Conditioning Techniques

Operant Conditioning • Behavior Modification – reinforce desired behaviors, ignore undesirable behaviors • Based on B. F. Skinner’s operant conditioning model of learning – Shaping involves reinforcing successive approximations (step by step process) of a desired behavior – Positive reinforcement is used to increase the incidence of desired behaviors – Extinction, or nonreinforcement, is used to reduce the occurrence of undesired behaviors

Token Economy • Attempts to modify behavior by giving tokens (rewards) for desired behavior. • Use for behavior modification in group settings (prisons, classrooms, hospitals) • The tokens can be exchanged for various privileges or treats – Form of secondary reinforcement • Is it OK to use Electric shocks to stop self-harming behaviors in people with severe autism? (3 min) • Proven to be especially effective in the outpatient treatment of substance abuse and dependence and with severely disturbed or disabled people