Behavior therapy
= aims to change the factors in the environment that influence an individuals behavior as well as the ways in which individuals respond to their environment
What are the 3 waves of behavior therapy
- Behavioral
- Behavioral + cognitive
- Behavioral + cognitive + acceptance
What are 4 factors that underlie behavioral therapy
- classical conditioning
- operant conditioning
- vicarious/observational learning
- rule-governed/instructional learning
What are 4 kinds of reinforcement/punishment in operant conditioning
- negative reinforcement = behavior is followed by removal of an aversive stimulus
- positive reinforcement = behavior is followed by a rewarding stimulus
- positive punishment = behavior is followed by an aversive consequence (eg. hitting/yelling)
- negative punishment = behavior is followed by removal of a desired stimulus
What are 5 criteria for treatment planning
- probability value (how likely is it)
- problematic value
- treatability
- centrality (= is addressing the one problem going to have an influence on the other problems; vs end problem)
- does it fit with the patient’s reason for therapy
Functional analysis
= ideally involves manipulating environmental variables and measuring their effect on target behavior
What is meant with ABC
A = antecedents of target behavior
B = behavior
C = consequences of behavior
—> Key variables assessed during functional analysis
What are the 12 most important kinds of central techniques of behavior therapy
- Behavioral assessment; interviews, observation, diaries, self-report scales, psych assessment
- Treatment planning; setting goals, based on functional analysis or diagnostic profile
- Exposure-based strategies
- Response prevention = inhibiting unwanted behavior to break associations between stimulus and response
- Operant-conditioning strategies; reinforcement-based or punishment-based
- Relaxation training
- Stimulus-control procedures = aim to correct problems related to stimulus control, particularly inappropriate stimuli
- Modeling; learn to overcome fear by watching others confront a situation without fear
- Behavioral activation (for depression)
- Social skills training
- Problem-solving training
- Acceptance-based behavioral therapies
Target behavior
= the behavior that the client most wants to change
What are 8 shared characteristics of BT
- Focus on behavioral change and expanding response options
- Focus on empiricism, hypothesis-testing and evaluation
- Supported by scientific evidence
- Behavior is a function of the environment, not the patient’s fault
- Focus on maintaining factors/current determinants of problem behavior
- Focus on homework in patient’s real environment
- Active, structured, directive and creative
- Transparent and collaborative
What are 6 misunderstandings of BT
- Coercive
- Denial of deeper thoughts and feelings
- Superficial and (only) addressing symptoms instead of (real) causes
- Exclusive focus on present
- Simplistic and manualized
- Ignores therapeutic relationship
What is a meaning analysis and in which 2 ways can we break this
= exploring personal significance that clients attach to their experiences/thoughts/behaviors, in terms of reinforcement (US/CS)
- extinction (unlearning)
- inhibition (new learning)
Taking an empirical approach includes… (4)
- awareness of your own biases about clients
- awareness of biases about treatment
- collecting data throughout the course of therapy to test hypothesis about maintaining factors
- collecting data to evaluate intervention effects
