BEHAVIORAL THERAPHY

Burrhus Frederic Skinner - spent most of his professional life at Harvard. He has been described as the most influential psychologist of this century and he certainly set the stage for the development of behavior theraphy.

Joseph Wolpe - receive his medical degree in South Africa and, after studying Pavlov, rebelled against his psychoanalytic training and devoted his career to an empirical approach to psychotheraphy. He is beat known for devising systematic desensitization.

Albert Bandura - Has taught psychology his entire career at Stanford University, where he has developed a broader perspective on behavior theraphy by bringing in a social learning component.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT

   The beginnings of behavioral therapy can be found at the crossroads of the rise of behaviorism as the philosophical view and empiricism as a growing method in psychology. With the advent of systematic desensitization in the 1950s, however, behavior therapy came into its own and grew quickly during the 1960s as an alternative to psychodynamic approaches.

VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE

   Behavior therapists view humans as products of their experiences. People are neither good nor bad. But the behavior therapists does view humans as hedonistic in nature, responding to requests to end or decrease personal suffering or to promote greater pleasure and enjoyment in life. Behavior therapists have no model of optimal human functioning toward which clients led.

DEVELOPMENT OF MALADAPTIVE BEHAVIOR

   Psychopathology, from the behavioral perspective, is defined as behavior that is advantageous or dangerous to the individual and/or to other people. It can result from insufficient cues to predict consequences or from inadequate reinforcement. One of the most painful of all maladaptive behaviors stems from an overly severe set of self-standards, and the resulting excess of self-criticism.

GOALS OF THERAPY

  The goal of behavioral therapy is to extinguish the client's identified maladaptive behavior and to introduce or strengthen adaptive behavior that can serve as a replacement and enable him or her to live a productive life. 

   The key to reaching this goal is learning new behaviors. The relies on three paradigms that can stand alone but are often integrated in this approach:

• Respondent learning
• Operant conditioning
• Social modelling

 FUNCTION OF THE THERAPIST

   The behavior therapist is generally very active in counseling. He or She serves as a consultant, a supporter, a resource, and a model. Functionally, the behavior therapist facilitates a process involving four major steps:

• Accurately defining the problem.
• Gathering a developmental history of the clients.
• Establishing specific goals.
• Determining the best methods for change.

MAJOR METHODS and TECHNIQUES

   Because its task is to resolve client symptoms, there are literally dozens and dozens of behavior therapy techniques. Some of the common methods include:

• Behavioral assessment - specifying  an individualize treatment plan.
• Positive reinforcement - giving reward for positive behavior.
• Token economies - using tokens to be exchanged for desired objects or privileges.
• Assertiveness training - enabling clients to express thoughts and feelings more freely.
• Modeling - learning through observing the behavior of another.
• Relaxation training - discriminating between tense and relaxed muscle groups to relax on cue.
• Systematic desensitization - paring of a neutral stimulus with one that are already elicits fear.
• Flooding - maximizing the anxious state of a client for eventual extinction.

APPLICATION

    Research has shown different forms of behavior therapy to be effective in treating anger, obsessive-compulsive disorders, phobias, depression, alcoholism, sexual dysfunction, parahilias, marital distress, and childhood disorders. It has been used successfully in a wide variety of settings.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

   Behavior therapy provides a relatively coherent conceptual framework of psychotherapy. It is committed to systematization, objectivity, evaluation, and a solid research base. It provides clients with an understanding of the treatment process and also supplies the practitioner with an abundance of effective techniques.

   Behavior therapy, however, is criticized for not dealing with the total person. Critics also point to relatively little attention the behavioral approach has devoted to the therapeutic process.

SUBMIITED BY:

BARDINAS, Evelyn

RENCIO, Jomalou

TANAYAN, Geraldine

TOLENTINO, Leopoldo