Download Module 71 - Behavioral Therapy

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