Chapter 9: Behaviour Therapy
Introduction
- Behaviour therapy focuses:
▪ directly observable behaviour
▪ current determinants of behaviour
▪ learning experiences that promote change
▪ tailoring treatment strategies to individual clients
▪ thorough assessment and evaluation
- used to treat: wide range of psychological disorders with specific client populations
▪ anxiety disorders, depression, PTSD, substance abuse, eating/weight
disorders, sexual problems, pain management and hypertension
Historical Background:
- today, field has grown, become more complex & has diversity of views
- increasingly overlaps with other theoretical approaches
- use variety of evidence-based techniques
- 1960s: Albert Bandura developed social learning theory, which combined classical &
operant conditioning with observational learning. These focus on cognitive
representations of the environment rather than on characteristics of the objective
environment
- 1980s: characterised by a search for new concepts/methods. Increase attention to
role of emotions in therapeutic change & role of biological factors in psychological
disorders. the 2 most significant developments in the field were:
▪ 1.) continued emergence of CBT as a major force
▪ 2.) application of behavioural techniques to the prevention & treatment of
health-related disorders
- Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT)
- Early 2000s: behavioural tradition broadened – enlarging the scope of research &
practice. Including: Dialectal Behaviour Therapy (DBT); Mindfulness-Based Stress
Reduction (MBSR); Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and Acceptance and
Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Four Areas of Development:
- 4 major areas of development:
▪ 1.) Classical Conditioning ▪ 4.) Cognitive Behaviour
▪ 2.) Operant Conditioning Therapy
▪ 3.) Social-Cognitive Theory
- Classical Conditioning (Respondent Conditioning):
▪ Refers to what happens before learning that creates a response through
pairing
▪ Key figure: Ivan Pavlov – experiments with dogs:
1
, ➢ Placing food in a dog’s mouth leads to salivation, which is respondent
behaviour. When food is repeatedly presented with some originally
neutral stimulus (something that doesn’t elicit a particular response),
such as the sound of a bell, the dog will eventually salivate to the
sound of the bell alone. However, if a bell is sounded repeatedly but
not paired again with food, the salivation response will eventually
diminish & become extinct.
- Operant Condition:
▪ A type of learning in which behaviours are influenced mainly by the
consequences that follow them.
▪ If environmental changes brought about by behaviour are reinforcing – they
provide some reward to the organism/if they eliminate aversive stimuli – the
chances are increased that the behaviour will occur again
▪ If the environmental changes produce no reinforcement//produce aversive
stimuli, it becomes less likely that the behaviour will recur
▪ Positive and negative reinforcement, punishment and extinction techniques
show how operant conditioning in applied settings can help to develop
prosocial and adaptive behaviours
▪ Used in: parent education programmes and weight management programmes
- Social-Cognitive Theory (The Social Learning Approach):
▪ Developed by: Albert Bandura and Richard Walters (1963)
▪ Interactional, interdisciplinary and multimodal
▪ Involves a reciprocal interaction among 3 elements: the environment,
personal factors (beliefs, preferences, expectations, self-perceptions and
interpretations) and individual behaviour
▪ Environmental events on behaviour are mainly determined by cognitive
processes. These govern how environmental influences are perceived by an
individual and how these events are interpreted
▪ Basic assumption: people are capable of self-directed behaviour change &
person is the agent for change
▪ Self-efficacy: the individual’s belief/expectation that he/she can master a
situation and bring about desired change
- Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT):
▪ Represents: mainstream of contemporary behaviour therapy
▪ Assumes that what people believe influences how they act/feel
▪ Giving cognitive factors central role in understanding/treating emotional and
behavioural problems
▪ By mid-70s: CBT replaced BT as accepted designation
- Contemporary BT a lot in common with CBT: mechanisms of change is both cognitive
(modifying thoughts to change behaviour) and behavioural (altering external factors
that lead to behavioural change)
2
Introduction
- Behaviour therapy focuses:
▪ directly observable behaviour
▪ current determinants of behaviour
▪ learning experiences that promote change
▪ tailoring treatment strategies to individual clients
▪ thorough assessment and evaluation
- used to treat: wide range of psychological disorders with specific client populations
▪ anxiety disorders, depression, PTSD, substance abuse, eating/weight
disorders, sexual problems, pain management and hypertension
Historical Background:
- today, field has grown, become more complex & has diversity of views
- increasingly overlaps with other theoretical approaches
- use variety of evidence-based techniques
- 1960s: Albert Bandura developed social learning theory, which combined classical &
operant conditioning with observational learning. These focus on cognitive
representations of the environment rather than on characteristics of the objective
environment
- 1980s: characterised by a search for new concepts/methods. Increase attention to
role of emotions in therapeutic change & role of biological factors in psychological
disorders. the 2 most significant developments in the field were:
▪ 1.) continued emergence of CBT as a major force
▪ 2.) application of behavioural techniques to the prevention & treatment of
health-related disorders
- Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT)
- Early 2000s: behavioural tradition broadened – enlarging the scope of research &
practice. Including: Dialectal Behaviour Therapy (DBT); Mindfulness-Based Stress
Reduction (MBSR); Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and Acceptance and
Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Four Areas of Development:
- 4 major areas of development:
▪ 1.) Classical Conditioning ▪ 4.) Cognitive Behaviour
▪ 2.) Operant Conditioning Therapy
▪ 3.) Social-Cognitive Theory
- Classical Conditioning (Respondent Conditioning):
▪ Refers to what happens before learning that creates a response through
pairing
▪ Key figure: Ivan Pavlov – experiments with dogs:
1
, ➢ Placing food in a dog’s mouth leads to salivation, which is respondent
behaviour. When food is repeatedly presented with some originally
neutral stimulus (something that doesn’t elicit a particular response),
such as the sound of a bell, the dog will eventually salivate to the
sound of the bell alone. However, if a bell is sounded repeatedly but
not paired again with food, the salivation response will eventually
diminish & become extinct.
- Operant Condition:
▪ A type of learning in which behaviours are influenced mainly by the
consequences that follow them.
▪ If environmental changes brought about by behaviour are reinforcing – they
provide some reward to the organism/if they eliminate aversive stimuli – the
chances are increased that the behaviour will occur again
▪ If the environmental changes produce no reinforcement//produce aversive
stimuli, it becomes less likely that the behaviour will recur
▪ Positive and negative reinforcement, punishment and extinction techniques
show how operant conditioning in applied settings can help to develop
prosocial and adaptive behaviours
▪ Used in: parent education programmes and weight management programmes
- Social-Cognitive Theory (The Social Learning Approach):
▪ Developed by: Albert Bandura and Richard Walters (1963)
▪ Interactional, interdisciplinary and multimodal
▪ Involves a reciprocal interaction among 3 elements: the environment,
personal factors (beliefs, preferences, expectations, self-perceptions and
interpretations) and individual behaviour
▪ Environmental events on behaviour are mainly determined by cognitive
processes. These govern how environmental influences are perceived by an
individual and how these events are interpreted
▪ Basic assumption: people are capable of self-directed behaviour change &
person is the agent for change
▪ Self-efficacy: the individual’s belief/expectation that he/she can master a
situation and bring about desired change
- Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT):
▪ Represents: mainstream of contemporary behaviour therapy
▪ Assumes that what people believe influences how they act/feel
▪ Giving cognitive factors central role in understanding/treating emotional and
behavioural problems
▪ By mid-70s: CBT replaced BT as accepted designation
- Contemporary BT a lot in common with CBT: mechanisms of change is both cognitive
(modifying thoughts to change behaviour) and behavioural (altering external factors
that lead to behavioural change)
2
