Behaviour therapy
Encyclopedia
Behaviour therapy, or behavior therapy (behaviour modification) is an approach to psychotherapy based on learning theory which aims to treat psychopathology
through techniques designed to reinforce desired and eliminate
undesired behaviours.
. For example, Wolpe
and Lazarus
wrote,
Possibly the first occurrence of the term "behaviour therapy" was in a 1953 research project by B.F. Skinner, Ogden Lindsley
, Nathan H. Azrin and Harry C. Solomon. Other early pioneers in behaviour therapy include Joseph Wolpe
and Hans Eysenck
.
In general, behaviour therapy is seen as having three distinct points of origin: South Africa (Wolpe's group), The United States (Skinner), and the United Kingdom (Rachman and Eysenck). Each had its own distinct approach to viewing behaviour problems. Eysenck in particular viewed behaviour problems as an interplay between personality characteristics, environment, and behaviour. Skinner's group in the United States took more of an operant conditioning
focus. The operant focus created a functional approach to assessment and interventions focused on contingency management
such as the token economy
and behavioural activation. Skinner's student Ogden Lindsley
is credited with forming a movement called precision teaching
, which developed a particular type of graphing program called the standard celeration chart to monitor the progress of clients. Skinner became interested in the individualising of programs for improved learning in those with or without disabilities and worked with Fred S. Keller
to develop programmed instruction
. Programmed instruction had some clinical success in aphasia rehabilitation. Gerald Patterson used programme instruction to develop his parenting text for children with conduct problems. (see Parent Management Training
). With age, respondent conditioning appears to slow but operant conditioning
remains relatively stable.
While many behaviour therapists remain staunchly committed to the basic operant and respondent paradigm, in the second half of the 20th century, many therapists coupled behaviour therapy with the cognitive therapy
of Aaron Beck and Albert Ellis, to form cognitive behavioural therapy. In some areas the cognitive component had an additive effect (for example, evidence suggests that cognitive interventions improve the result of social phobia treatment.) but in other areas it did not enhance the treatment, which led to the pursuit of Third Generation Behaviour Therapies. Third generation behaviour therapy uses basic principles of operant and respondent psychology but couples them with functional analysis and a clinical formulation
/case conceptualisation of verbal behaviour more inline with view of the behaviour analysts. Some research supports these therapies as being more effective in some cases than cogntive therapy, but overall the question is still in need of answers.
developed by Ivan Pavlov
and operant conditioning
developed by B.F. Skinner. There has been a good deal of confusion on how these two conditionings differ and whether the various techniques of behaviour therapy have any common scientific base.
Contingency management
programs are a direct product of research from operant conditioning
. These programs have been highly successful with those suffering from panic disorders, anxiety disorders, and phobias.
Systematic desensitisation and exposure and response prevention both evolved from respondent conditioning and have also received considerable research.
Social skills training teaches clients skills to access reinforcers and lessen life punishment. Operant conditioning
procedures in meta-analysis
had the largest effect size for training social skills, followed by modelling
, coaching, and social cognitive techniques in that order. Social skills training has some empirical support particularly for schizophrenia. However, with schizophrenia, behavioural programs have generally lost favour.
Functional analysis has even been applied to problems that therapists commonly encounter like client resistance, particially engaged clients and involuntary clients. Applications to these problems have left clinicans with considerable tools for enhancing therapeutic effectiveness. One way to enhance therapeutic effectiveness is to use positive reinforcement or operant conditioning.
Many have argued that behaviour therapy is at least as effective as drug treatment for depression, ADHD, and OCD. Considerable policy implications have been inspired by behavioural views of various forms of psychopathology. One form of behaviour therapy (habit reversal training
) has been found to be highly effective for treating tics.
because it represents a movement away from cognitivism and back toward radical behaviourism and other forms of behaviourism, in particular functional analysis and behavioural models of verbal behaviour. This area includes Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
(ACT), Cognitive Behavioral Analysis System of Psychotherapy (CBASP) (McCullough, 2000), behavioural activation (BA), Kohlenberg & Tsai's Functional Analytic Psychotherapy
, integrative behavioural couples therapy and dialectical behavioural therapy. These approaches are squarely within the applied behaviour analysis tradition of behaviour therapy.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
is probably the most well-researched of all the third generation behaviour therapy models. It is based on Relational Frame Theory
.
Functional Analytic Psychotherapy
is based on a functional analysis of the therapeutic relationship. It places a greater emphasis on the therapeutic context and returns to the use of in session reinforcement. In general, 40 years of research supports the idea that in-session reinforcement of behaviour can lead to behavioural change.
Behavioural activation emerged from a component analysis of cognitive behaviour therapy. This research found no additive effect for the cognitive component. Behavioural activation is based on a matching model of reinforcement. A recent review of the research, supports the notion that the use of behavioural activation is clinically important for the treatment of depression.
Integrative behavioural couples therapy developed from dissatisfaction with traditional behavioural couples therapy. Integrative behavioural couples therapy looks to Skinner (1966) for the difference between contingency-shaped and rule-governed behaviour. It couples this analysis with a thorough functional assessment of the couple's relationship. Recent efforts have used radical behavioural concepts to interpret a number of clinical phenomena including forgiveness.
(formerly the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy) is for those with a more cognitive orientation. Internationally, most behaviour therapists find a core intellectual home in the International Association for Behavior Analysis
(ABAI) http://www.abainternational.org/.
Behavioural therapy develops,adds and provides behavioural intervention strategies and the programs for clients and adds training to people that care for the facilitate successful lives in the communities.
Psychopathology
Psychopathology is the study of mental illness, mental distress, and abnormal/maladaptive behavior. The term is most commonly used within psychiatry where pathology refers to disease processes...
through techniques designed to reinforce desired and eliminate
Extinction (psychology)
Extinction is the conditioning phenomenon in which a previously learned response to a cue is reduced when the cue is presented in the absence of the previously paired aversive or appetitive stimulus.-Fear conditioning:...
undesired behaviours.
History
Precursors of certain fundamental aspects of behaviour therapy have been identified in various ancient philosophical traditions, particularly StoicismStoicism
Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early . The Stoics taught that destructive emotions resulted from errors in judgment, and that a sage, or person of "moral and intellectual perfection," would not suffer such emotions.Stoics were concerned...
. For example, Wolpe
Joseph Wolpe
Joseph Wolpe was born on April 20, 1915, in Johannesburg, South Africa, and died on December 4, 1997, from lung cancer. He is one of the most influential figures in behavior therapy....
and Lazarus
Arnold Lazarus
Arnold Allan Lazarus is a South African psychologist who is known for his contributions to behavior therapy.Concurrently with the pioneering contributions of Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck, starting in the late 1950s and continuing through the 1970s, Lazarus developed what was arguably the first form...
wrote,
Possibly the first occurrence of the term "behaviour therapy" was in a 1953 research project by B.F. Skinner, Ogden Lindsley
Ogden Lindsley
Ogden R. Lindsley was an American psychologist. He is best known for developing Precision Teaching and Celeration Charting....
, Nathan H. Azrin and Harry C. Solomon. Other early pioneers in behaviour therapy include Joseph Wolpe
Joseph Wolpe
Joseph Wolpe was born on April 20, 1915, in Johannesburg, South Africa, and died on December 4, 1997, from lung cancer. He is one of the most influential figures in behavior therapy....
and Hans Eysenck
Hans Eysenck
Hans Jürgen Eysenck was a German-British psychologist who spent most of his career in Britain, best remembered for his work on intelligence and personality, though he worked in a wide range of areas...
.
In general, behaviour therapy is seen as having three distinct points of origin: South Africa (Wolpe's group), The United States (Skinner), and the United Kingdom (Rachman and Eysenck). Each had its own distinct approach to viewing behaviour problems. Eysenck in particular viewed behaviour problems as an interplay between personality characteristics, environment, and behaviour. Skinner's group in the United States took more of an operant conditioning
Operant conditioning
Operant conditioning is a form of psychological learning during which an individual modifies the occurrence and form of its own behavior due to the association of the behavior with a stimulus...
focus. The operant focus created a functional approach to assessment and interventions focused on contingency management
Contingency Management
Contingency management is a type of treatment used in the mental health or substance abuse fields. Patients are rewarded for their behavior; generally, adherence to or failure to adhere to program rules and regulations or their treatment plan...
such as the token economy
Token economy
A token economy is a system of behavior modification based on the systematic positive reinforcement of target behavior. The reinforcers are symbols or tokens that can be exchanged for other reinforcers. Token economy is based on the principles of operant conditioning and can be situated within...
and behavioural activation. Skinner's student Ogden Lindsley
Ogden Lindsley
Ogden R. Lindsley was an American psychologist. He is best known for developing Precision Teaching and Celeration Charting....
is credited with forming a movement called precision teaching
Precision teaching
Precision teaching is a precise and systematic method of evaluating instructional tactics and curricula. It is one of the few quantitative analyses of behavior forms of applied behavior analysis. It comes from a very strong quantitative scientific basis and was pioneered by Ogden Lindsley in the...
, which developed a particular type of graphing program called the standard celeration chart to monitor the progress of clients. Skinner became interested in the individualising of programs for improved learning in those with or without disabilities and worked with Fred S. Keller
Fred S. Keller
Fred Simmons Keller was a pioneer in experimental psychology. He taught at Columbia University for 26 years and gave his name to the Keller Plan, also known as Personalized System of Instruction an individually paced, mastery-oriented teaching method that has had a significant impact on...
to develop programmed instruction
Programmed instruction
Programmed instruction is the name of the technology invented by the behaviorist B.F. Skinner to improve teaching. It is based on his theory of verbal behavior as a means to accelerate and increase conventional educational learning.-Programmed instruction:...
. Programmed instruction had some clinical success in aphasia rehabilitation. Gerald Patterson used programme instruction to develop his parenting text for children with conduct problems. (see Parent Management Training
Parent Management Training
Parent Management Training is a programme that trains parents to manage their children's behavioural problems at home and at school. PMT works to correct maladaptive parent-child interactions especially as they apply to discipline...
). With age, respondent conditioning appears to slow but operant conditioning
Operant conditioning
Operant conditioning is a form of psychological learning during which an individual modifies the occurrence and form of its own behavior due to the association of the behavior with a stimulus...
remains relatively stable.
While many behaviour therapists remain staunchly committed to the basic operant and respondent paradigm, in the second half of the 20th century, many therapists coupled behaviour therapy with the cognitive therapy
Cognitive therapy
Cognitive behavioral therapy is a psychotherapeutic approach: a talking therapy. CBT aims to solve problems concerning dysfunctional emotions, behaviors and cognitions through a goal-oriented, systematic procedure in the present...
of Aaron Beck and Albert Ellis, to form cognitive behavioural therapy. In some areas the cognitive component had an additive effect (for example, evidence suggests that cognitive interventions improve the result of social phobia treatment.) but in other areas it did not enhance the treatment, which led to the pursuit of Third Generation Behaviour Therapies. Third generation behaviour therapy uses basic principles of operant and respondent psychology but couples them with functional analysis and a clinical formulation
Clinical formulation
A clinical formulation is a theoretically-based explanation or conceptualisation of the information obtained from a clinical assessment. It offers a hypothesis about the cause and nature of the presenting problems and is considered an alternative approach to the more categorical approach of...
/case conceptualisation of verbal behaviour more inline with view of the behaviour analysts. Some research supports these therapies as being more effective in some cases than cogntive therapy, but overall the question is still in need of answers.
Scientific basis
Behaviour therapy is based upon the principles of classical conditioningClassical conditioning
Classical conditioning is a form of conditioning that was first demonstrated by Ivan Pavlov...
developed by Ivan Pavlov
Ivan Pavlov
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was a famous Russian physiologist. Although he made significant contributions to psychology, he was not in fact a psychologist himself but was a mathematician and actually had strong distaste for the field....
and operant conditioning
Operant conditioning
Operant conditioning is a form of psychological learning during which an individual modifies the occurrence and form of its own behavior due to the association of the behavior with a stimulus...
developed by B.F. Skinner. There has been a good deal of confusion on how these two conditionings differ and whether the various techniques of behaviour therapy have any common scientific base.
Contingency management
Contingency Management
Contingency management is a type of treatment used in the mental health or substance abuse fields. Patients are rewarded for their behavior; generally, adherence to or failure to adhere to program rules and regulations or their treatment plan...
programs are a direct product of research from operant conditioning
Operant conditioning
Operant conditioning is a form of psychological learning during which an individual modifies the occurrence and form of its own behavior due to the association of the behavior with a stimulus...
. These programs have been highly successful with those suffering from panic disorders, anxiety disorders, and phobias.
Systematic desensitisation and exposure and response prevention both evolved from respondent conditioning and have also received considerable research.
Social skills training teaches clients skills to access reinforcers and lessen life punishment. Operant conditioning
Operant conditioning
Operant conditioning is a form of psychological learning during which an individual modifies the occurrence and form of its own behavior due to the association of the behavior with a stimulus...
procedures in meta-analysis
Meta-analysis
In statistics, a meta-analysis combines the results of several studies that address a set of related research hypotheses. In its simplest form, this is normally by identification of a common measure of effect size, for which a weighted average might be the output of a meta-analyses. Here the...
had the largest effect size for training social skills, followed by modelling
Modelling (psychology)
Modelling or modeling in psychology is:# a method used in certain techniques of psychotherapy whereby the client learns by imitation alone, without any specific verbal direction by the therapist and...
, coaching, and social cognitive techniques in that order. Social skills training has some empirical support particularly for schizophrenia. However, with schizophrenia, behavioural programs have generally lost favour.
Applied to problem behaviour
Behaviour therapy based its core interventions on functional analysis. Just a few of the many problems that behaviour therapy have functionally analysed include intimacy in couples relationships, forgiveness in couples, chronic pain, stress-related behaviour problems of being an adult child of an alcoholic, anorexia, chronic distress, substance abuse, depression, anxiety, and obesity.Functional analysis has even been applied to problems that therapists commonly encounter like client resistance, particially engaged clients and involuntary clients. Applications to these problems have left clinicans with considerable tools for enhancing therapeutic effectiveness. One way to enhance therapeutic effectiveness is to use positive reinforcement or operant conditioning.
Many have argued that behaviour therapy is at least as effective as drug treatment for depression, ADHD, and OCD. Considerable policy implications have been inspired by behavioural views of various forms of psychopathology. One form of behaviour therapy (habit reversal training
Habit reversal training
Habit reversal training is a "multicomponent behavioral treatment package originally developed to address a wide variety of repetitive behavior disorders"....
) has been found to be highly effective for treating tics.
Third generation
Of particular interest, in behaviour therapy today are the areas often referred to as Third Generation Behaviour Therapy. This movement has been called clinical behavior analysisClinical behavior analysis
Clinical behavior analysis has its origins in applied behavior analysis and behavior therapy. It is sometimes referred to as third-generation behavior therapy.-Current models in clinical behavior analysis:...
because it represents a movement away from cognitivism and back toward radical behaviourism and other forms of behaviourism, in particular functional analysis and behavioural models of verbal behaviour. This area includes Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Acceptance and commitment therapy or ACT is a cognitive–behavioral model of psychotherapy. It is an empirically-based psychological intervention that uses acceptance and mindfulness strategies mixed in different ways with commitment and behavior-change strategies, to increase psychological...
(ACT), Cognitive Behavioral Analysis System of Psychotherapy (CBASP) (McCullough, 2000), behavioural activation (BA), Kohlenberg & Tsai's Functional Analytic Psychotherapy
Functional Analytic Psychotherapy
Functional analytic psychotherapy is an approach to clinical psychotherapy that uses a radical behaviorist position informed by B.F. Skinner's analysis of verbal behavior....
, integrative behavioural couples therapy and dialectical behavioural therapy. These approaches are squarely within the applied behaviour analysis tradition of behaviour therapy.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Acceptance and commitment therapy or ACT is a cognitive–behavioral model of psychotherapy. It is an empirically-based psychological intervention that uses acceptance and mindfulness strategies mixed in different ways with commitment and behavior-change strategies, to increase psychological...
is probably the most well-researched of all the third generation behaviour therapy models. It is based on Relational Frame Theory
Relational frame theory
Relational frame theory, or RFT, is a psychological theory of human language and cognition. It was developed largely through the efforts of Steven C...
.
Functional Analytic Psychotherapy
Functional Analytic Psychotherapy
Functional analytic psychotherapy is an approach to clinical psychotherapy that uses a radical behaviorist position informed by B.F. Skinner's analysis of verbal behavior....
is based on a functional analysis of the therapeutic relationship. It places a greater emphasis on the therapeutic context and returns to the use of in session reinforcement. In general, 40 years of research supports the idea that in-session reinforcement of behaviour can lead to behavioural change.
Behavioural activation emerged from a component analysis of cognitive behaviour therapy. This research found no additive effect for the cognitive component. Behavioural activation is based on a matching model of reinforcement. A recent review of the research, supports the notion that the use of behavioural activation is clinically important for the treatment of depression.
Integrative behavioural couples therapy developed from dissatisfaction with traditional behavioural couples therapy. Integrative behavioural couples therapy looks to Skinner (1966) for the difference between contingency-shaped and rule-governed behaviour. It couples this analysis with a thorough functional assessment of the couple's relationship. Recent efforts have used radical behavioural concepts to interpret a number of clinical phenomena including forgiveness.
Organisations
Many organisations exist for behaviour therapists around the world. The World Association for Behavior Analysis offers a certification in behaviour therapy http://worldcenterba.com/index.html. In the United States, the American Psychological Association's Division 25 is the division for behaviour analysis. The Association for Contextual Behavior Therapy is another professional organisation. ACBS is home to many clinicians with specific interest in third generation behaviour therapy. The Association for Behavioral and Cognitive TherapiesAssociation for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies
The Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies was founded in 1966. Its headquarters are in New York City and its membership includes researchers, psychologists, psychiatrists, physicians, social workers, nurses, and other mental-health practitioners, researchers, and students who...
(formerly the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy) is for those with a more cognitive orientation. Internationally, most behaviour therapists find a core intellectual home in the International Association for Behavior Analysis
Association for Behavior Analysis
The Association for Behavior Analysis International is a nonprofit professional membership organization with the mission to contribute to the well-being of society by developing, enhancing, and supporting the growth and vitality of the science of behavior analysis through research, education, and...
(ABAI) http://www.abainternational.org/.
Characteristics
By nature, behavioural therapies are empirical (data-driven), contextual (focused on the environment and context), functional (interested in the effect or consequence a behaviour ultimately has), probabilistic (viewing behaviour as statistically predictable), monistic (rejecting mind–body dualism and treating the person as a unit), and relational (analysing bidirectional interactions).Behavioural therapy develops,adds and provides behavioural intervention strategies and the programs for clients and adds training to people that care for the facilitate successful lives in the communities.
Methods
- Systematic desensitisation
- Exposure and response prevention
- Behaviour modification
- FloodingFlooding (psychology)Flooding is a form of behavior therapy and based on the principles of respondent conditioning. It is sometimes referred to as exposure therapy or prolonged exposure therapy. As a psychotherapeutic technique, it is used to treat phobia and anxiety disorders including post-traumatic stress disorder...
- Operant conditioningOperant conditioningOperant conditioning is a form of psychological learning during which an individual modifies the occurrence and form of its own behavior due to the association of the behavior with a stimulus...
- Covert conditioningCovert conditioningCovert conditioning is an approach to mental health treatment that uses the principles of behavior modification, which emerged from the applied behavior analysis literature to assist people in making improvements in their behavior or inner experience. The method relies on the person's capacity to...
- Observational learningObservational learningObservational learning is a type of learning that occurs as a function of observing, retaining and replicating novel behavior executed by others...
- Contingency managementContingency ManagementContingency management is a type of treatment used in the mental health or substance abuse fields. Patients are rewarded for their behavior; generally, adherence to or failure to adhere to program rules and regulations or their treatment plan...
- Matching lawMatching lawIn operant conditioning, the matching law is a quantitative relationship that holds between the relative rates of response and the relative rates of reinforcement in concurrent schedules of reinforcement...
- Habit reversal trainingHabit reversal trainingHabit reversal training is a "multicomponent behavioral treatment package originally developed to address a wide variety of repetitive behavior disorders"....
See also
- Aversion therapyAversion therapyAversion therapy is a form of psychological treatment in which the patient is exposed to a stimulus while simultaneously being subjected to some form of discomfort...
- Cognitive therapyCognitive therapyCognitive behavioral therapy is a psychotherapeutic approach: a talking therapy. CBT aims to solve problems concerning dysfunctional emotions, behaviors and cognitions through a goal-oriented, systematic procedure in the present...
- Cognitive behavioural therapy
- Applied behaviour analysis
- Behaviour management
- Professional practice of behaviour analysis
- Functional Analytic PsychotherapyFunctional Analytic PsychotherapyFunctional analytic psychotherapy is an approach to clinical psychotherapy that uses a radical behaviorist position informed by B.F. Skinner's analysis of verbal behavior....
- Acceptance and Commitment TherapyAcceptance and Commitment TherapyAcceptance and commitment therapy or ACT is a cognitive–behavioral model of psychotherapy. It is an empirically-based psychological intervention that uses acceptance and mindfulness strategies mixed in different ways with commitment and behavior-change strategies, to increase psychological...
- Dialectical behavioural therapy
- Behavioural activation
- Creative Applied ModificationCreative Applied ModificationThe Nobel Winner physiologist Pavlov has developed a method of a combination of a conditioned reflex with unconditional, that caused strong hormonal changes in an organism. The certain sound in an open-air cage for dogs, was accompanied by their feeding...
- A Clockwork OrangeA Clockwork OrangeA Clockwork Orange is a 1962 dystopian novella by Anthony Burgess. The novel contains an experiment in language: the characters often use an argot called "Nadsat", derived from Russian....