Behavior Theory B.F. Skinner Skinner championed radical

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Behavior Theory
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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.

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4 Areas of Development

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

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• 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.

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• 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.

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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

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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.

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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 therapists
  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.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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 its very
  important to develop strategies to maintain
  behaviors

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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

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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

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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 its 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

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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
  therapists 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

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Assertion Training

• Useful for people who cant 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 dont stand up for their rights at all
  cost, ignoring the feelings of others

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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

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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

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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

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The Basic I.D.

• BBehavior
• AAffective responses
• SSensations
• IImages
• CCognitions
• IInterpersonal relationships
• DDrugs, biological functions, nutrition and
  exercise

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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