Behavior Theory

B.F. Skinner• Skinner championed radical behaviorism, which

places primary emphasis on the effects of environment on behavior. Skinner was also a determinist; he did not believe that humans had free choice. He acknowledged that feelings and thoughts exist, but he denied that they CAUSED our actions. Instead he stresses the cause and effect links between objective, observable environmental conditions and behavior. Environmental factors can be directly observed and changed. In 197 Skinner wrote a book “Beyond Freedom and Dignity”.

4 Areas of Development

• Classical Conditioning• Operant Conditioning• Social Learning Theory• Cognitive Behavior Therapy

• Classical Conditioning- (respondent conditioning)- refers to what happens prior to learning that creates a responds thought, pairing. Example- knee jerks, salivation

• Operant Conditioning-most of the significant responses we make in everyday life. Examples are reading, writing, driving a car and eating with utensils. Positive and negative reinforcement, punishment and extinction techniques, illustrates how operant conditioning in applied settings can be instrumental in developing prosocial and adaptive behaviors.

• Social learning theory is interact ional, interdisciplinary and multimodal. It involves a triadic reciprocal interaction among the environment, personal factors (beliefs, preferences, expectations, self-perception and so forth), and individual behavior. A basic assumption is that people are capable of self-directed behavior change.

• Cognitive behavior Therapy-this approach offers various action-oriented methods to help people change what they are doing and thinking.

View of Human Nature• The person is the producer and the product of his

or her environment• Developing producers that actually give control

to acts and thus increases their range of freedom• It aims to increase peoples skills so that they

have more options for responding• Given the techniques and skills of self change,

people have the capacity to improve their lives by altering one or more of the various factors influencing their behavior

Basic Characteristics and Assumptions:

• Behavior therapy are based on the principles and procedures of the scientific method. Experimentally derived principles of learning are systematically applied to help people change their maladaptive behavior

• Behavior therapy deals with the clients current problems and the factors influencing them as opposed to an analysis of possible historical determinants. At times understanding of the past may offer useful info. About the environmental events related to present behavior

• Clients involved in behavior therapy are expected to assume an active role by engaging in specific actions to deal with their problems. Rather than simply talking about their condition they are required to DO something to bring about change. Behavior therapy is an action-oriented approach, & learning is viewed as being at the core of therapy. Although referred to as “therapy” this is an education approach in which clients participate in a teaching-learning process.

Cont..

• The Behavioral approach emphasizes teaching clients skills of self-management with the expectation that they will be responsible for transferring what they learn in the therapist’s office to their everyday lives. Behavior therapy is generally carried in the clients natural environment as much as possible.

• The focuses is on assessing overt and covert behavior directly, identifying the problem, and evaluating change. Therapists also assess their clients culture as part of their social environments, including social support networks relating to target behavior.

• Behavior therapy emphasizes a self-control approach in which clients learn self-management strategies. Therapists frequently train clients to initiate, conduct, and evaluate their own therapy. Clients are empowered through this process of being responsible for their changes.

Cont..

• Behavioral treatment interventions are individually tailored to specific problems experience by clients. “What treatment, by whom, is the most effective for this individual with that specific problem and under which set of circumstances?

• The practice of behavior therapy is based on a collaborative partnership between therapist and clients and every attempt as made to inform clients about the nature and course of treatment

• The emphasis is on practical applications. Interventions are applied to all facets of daily life in which maladaptive behaviors are to be increased

• Therapists strive to develop culture specific procedures and obtain their clients adherence and cooperation

Therapeutic Goals

• The general goals of behavior therapy are to increase personal choice and to create new conditions for learning

• The clients with the help of the therapists defines specific goals at the outset of the therapeutic process

• The counselor provides rationale for goals, explain role of goals, purpose of goals, and the clients participation in the goal-setting process

• Client identifies the outcomes specifying the positive changes that he and she wants from counseling

• Client is the person seeking help, and he or she can only make the changes in their life

• The benefit effect of all identified goals are explored and counselor and client discuss the possible advantages and disadvantages of these goals

• Client and counselor then decide to continue pursuing the selected goals, to reconsider the clients initial goals, or to seek the services of another practitioner

Therapeutic techniques and procedure

• Client keeps record of intensity or occurrences to devise if the therapy is working

• Some assessment instruments including; self-report inventories, behavior rating scales, monitoring self form, and simple observation techniques

• Treatment outcomes are multifaceted, changes are all or nothing

• Behavior therapy is used for a specific person not some random therapy

• Behavioral therapy can be incorporated into other approaches• Some approaches of the behavioral therapy ranges from

behavioral analysis, functional assessment model, relaxation training, systematic desensitization, exposure therapies, eye movement, assertion training, self-management programs, self-direct behavior, and multimodal therapy

Operant conditioning Techniques• Some key principles of operant conditioning are: positive

reinforcement, negative reinforcement, extinction, positive punishment and negative punishment

• Positive reinforcement involves the addition of something of value to the individual as a consequence of a certain behavior

• Negative reinforcement involves escape or avoidance of unpleasant stimuli. Individual motivated to exhibit a desired behavior to avoid the unpleasant condition

• Extinction can be used for behaviors that have been maintained by positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement. Doing so can eliminate certain behaviors.

• Positive punishment aversive stimulus is added after the behavior to decrease the frequency of a behavior

• Negative punishment id reinforcing stimulus is removed following the behavior to decrease the frequency of a target behavior

• Both kinds of punishment, the behavior is less likely to happen again

Functional Assessment Model

• The first step is to conduct a functional assessment using both indirect and direct observation, and information about antecedent events, including the time and place of the behavior and the people present when the behavior occurs

• The therapist develops hypotheses about the nature of the problem behavior and the condition contributing to this behavior

• Hypothesized to be maintaining the problem behaviors• Negative punishment procedures may be used to decrease

problem• After treatment methods have been used it’s very important

to develop strategies to maintain behaviors

Relaxation Training

• Clients are given a set of instructions that ask them to relax in a quite environment and taking deep and regular breathing patterns

• Clients are suppose to “let go”• Clients are encouraged to actually feel and

experience the tension building up, to notice their muscles getting tighter and study the tension, to hold and fully experience the tension

• A normal relaxation practice lasts for 20 to 25 minutes

• It helps relieve stress and anxiety

Systematic Desensitization• Clients are to imagine successively more anxiety arousing situations at

the same time that they engage in a behavior that competes with anxiety• Gradually clients become less sensitive to the anxiety arousing situations• The therapist conducts an initial interview to identify specific information

about the anxiety and to gather relevant background information about the client

• Background information gives the therapist a good understanding of the client

• Find out under what circumstances does the clients have anxiety• Therapist conducts a relaxation training before going to therapy, • Conducts anxiety hierarchy which stimuli that elicit anxiety in a particular

situation such as rejection, jealousy, criticism, disapproval, or any phobia• Desensitization begins after several sessions, client reaches complete

relaxation with eyes closed, then imagine the least anxiety arousing scene, therapist moves progressivly up the hierarchy until the client signals anxiety, relaxation is introduced again until little anxiety is experienced

Exposure Therapies

• Exposure therapies are designed to treat fears and other negative emotional responses by introducing client to the situation that contributed to such problems

• In Vivo desensitization involves the client exposure to the actual feared situation in the hierarchy in real life rather than simply imagining situations

• Flooding which refers to either in vivo or imaginal exposure to anxiety-evoking stimuli for a prolonged period of time

• Allows the anxiety to decrease on it’s own• Flooding can be used for many fearful anxieties such as flying,

riding in subways, riding in elevators and phobia of certain animals

• Because of the discomfort in this treatment with intense exposure some clients may not elect these exposures

Eye Movement Desensitization and ReprocessingEMDR

• EMDR is a form of exposure therapy that involves imaginable flooding, cognitive restructuring, and the use of rapid, rhythmic eye movement and other bilateral stimulation to treat clients who have experienced traumatic stress

• EMDR is applied to many populations that deal with posttraumatic stress disorders, sexual abuse victims, combat veterans, victims of crime, rape survivors, accident victims, children, couples

• It also deals with individuals that have anxiety, panic, depression, grief, addictions and phobias

• The client is instructed to visually track the therapist’s index finger as they move it back and forth 12 to 24 times

• Client is instructed to block out negative experience momentarily and breathe deep and to report what he/she is imagining, feeling and thinking

• Client is asked the positive cognition and identify and body tension• Do reevaluation in next session

Assertion Training• Useful for people who can’t express anger or irritation, difficult

to say no, people who are overly polite and allows others to take advantage of them, people who find it difficult to express affection and other positive responses, people who feel they have no right to express their thought beliefs, and feelings and people who have social phobias

• The assumption underlying assertion training is so clients can have the right to express themselves

• A goal in assertion training is to teach clients to express themselves in ways that reflect sensitivity to the feelings and rights of others

• Clients have the CHOICE of whether to behave assertively in certain situations

• Assertion does not mean aggression, assertive clients don’t stand up for their rights at all cost, ignoring the feelings of others

Self Management & Self Direct Behavior

• Involves psychologists being willing to share their knowledge so that consumers can increasingly lead self-directed lives and not be dependent on experts

• Therapist teach clients skills that they will need to manage their own lives effectively

• Clients have a direct role of their own treatment, techniques aimed at self-change tend to increase involvement and commitment to their own treatment

• Self management strategies include but limited to, self monitoring, self reward, self contracting, stimulus control and self as model

• Five characteristics are combination of self management, engage regularly over period of time, client make self evaluation, use self reinforcement and a degree of environmental support

Multimodal Therapy: Clinical Behavior Therapy

• Multimodal therapy is a comprehensive, systematic, holistic approach to behavior therapy develop

• This model implies that we are social beings who move, feel, sense, imagine and think

• Multimodal is an open system, that encourages technical eclecticism

• New techniques are being introduced constantly and existing techniques are refined

• Therapist take great plain to determine what relationship and what treatment strategies will work best with each individual in a particular situation

• Assumption of this approach is that because individuals are troubled by a variety of specific problems it is appropriate that multitude of treatment strategies be used in bringing about change

Technical Eclecticism

• Therapist borrow techniques from many other therapy systems

• Therapist recognize that many clients come to therapy to learn skills, and therapist are willing to teach, coach, train, model and direct their clients

• Main function is provide information, instructions and reactions

• Therapist challenge self defeating beliefs, offer constructive feedback, provide positive reinforcement and are appropriately self disclosing

• Failure to apprehend the clients situation can easily leave the client feeling alienated and misunderstood

The Basic I.D.

• B=Behavior• A=Affective responses• S=Sensations• I=Images• C=Cognitions

• I=Interpersonal relationships• D=Drugs, biological functions, nutrition and

exercise

Role of Therapist• Therapist are very active during therapy sessions,

educators, consultants, and role models• Therapist provide information, instructions and feedback

as well as modeling assertive behaviors, challenging self defeating beliefs, offering constructive criticism and suggestions, offering positive reinforcement and being appropriately self-disclosing

• Therapists need to make choices regarding different styles of relating to clients

• Over the years has been learning to blend appropriate and effective techniques with the most suitable relationship style