Psy100 Clark Ch15therapiesB

Psyc 100 Ch 15B therapies 1 3/23/2009

Behavior Therapy

Psychoanalytic and client-centered therapies and other insight-oriented therapies try to achieve psychological health by understanding yourself in what motivates and troubles you. However, gaining insight into your problems does not necessarily result in desirable changes in behavior or thinking. Even if you know what the appropriate behavior is, you still might continue to do it. Unlike psychoanalytic and client-centered therapies, behavior therapy isn’t concerned with changing personality or understanding the reasons for your maladaptive behavior or your past, behavior therapy is concerned with changing your current behavior. • Techniques based on classical conditioning

o Counterconditioning o Systematic desensitization o Bell and pad treatment for bedwetting for children

over age 6 o Aversive conditioning

• Techniques based on operant conditioning


Development of Phobias

Classical conditioning: • eg. being bitten by

a poodle, you become anxious and fearful around poodles.

Stimulus generalization = fear of dogs

Neutral stimulus = UCS = UCR = CS = CR =

Operant conditioning (negative reinforcement): • In order to reduce

your anxiety or fear of poodles, you avoid them.

• Event: Seeing poodle makes you anxious. • Behavior: You avoid the poodle and walk

the other direction. • Consequence: You are more likely to

walk away when confronted with a poodle, thus allowing the avoidance behavior to continue and unable to learn that not all poodles are aggressive.

Observational learning: • You learn to be

afraid of dogs by seeing other people responding quite negatively to dogs.


Evolution: biological preparedness: we are biologically more likely to become afraid of objects that have posed a threat to previous generations (eg. snakes, spiders, heights, drowning, etc.)

vs.


Counterconditioning

Based on the principles of classical conditioning, a new conditioned response is learned that is incompatible with the previous learned response.


Systematic Desensitization

A type of behavior therapy in which phobic response are reduced by pairing relaxation with a series of mental images or real-life situations that the person finds progressively more fear-provoking. Generally, there are three basic steps in systematic desensitization. • The patient learns progressive relaxation. This

involves successively relaxing one muscle group after another until a deep state of relaxation is achieved.

• The behavior therapist helps the patient construct an anxiety hierarchy which a list of anxiety-providing images are associated with the feared situation

The patient also develops an image of a relaxing control scene such as nice summer day

• The last step involves the process of desensitization. While deeply relaxed, the patient imagines the least threatening scene in the hierarchy.


After the person can maintain relaxation while imagining the scene, they move to the next scene. If the person begins to feel anxious or tense, the therapist helps the patient imagine the previous scene or go to the control scene. If necessary, the therapist helps the patient relax again using the progressive relaxation technique.


Bell and Pad Treatment Based on the principles of classical conditioning, the bell and pad treatment has been effective for treating bedwetting by children over the age of 6. Children who are bedwetters tend to be very deep sleepers. Behavior therapy is based on the assumption that the child who wets the bed has not learned to wake up when their bladder is full. With the bell and pad treatment, a special insulted pad is placed under the bottom bedsheet. When the child starts to wet the bed, a loud bell goes off waking the child. After shutting off the alarm, the child uses the bathroom and changes the sheet. Before going back to bed, the child resets the alarm Unconditioned stimulus Loud Noise / Alarm

Unconditioned response Wake up Neutral stimulus Full bladder Conditioned stimulus Full bladder

Conditioned response Wake up


Aversive Conditioning Taste aversions can be used to create an unpleasant conditioned response to a behavior you wish to stop such as cigarette addiction or alcohol abuse. The effectiveness of aversive conditioning in treating substance abuse is more effective when the person is very motivated to stop and when it is combined with other forms of therapy. However, aversive conditioning is not very effective and it is not widely used.

UCS

UCR

NS

CS

CR


Aversive Conditioning with Taste Aversions


The Social Cognitive perspective and Albert Bandura

To understand personality, you need to know the social environment in which the person exists. Thinking (personality), the environment, and behavior all interact; each can only be understood relative to each other. • Social cognitive theory emphasizes the social origin of

thinking and behavior as well as active cognitive processes (unlike the psychoanalysts). Our sense of self can vary depending on our thoughts, feelings and behaviors in a given situation (context).

• It emphasizes conscious self-regulated behavior, rather than unconscious motives and drives. The person is an active participant in their environment. People do not simply react to the social environment, but they actively create their own environment and acts to change them.

• Based on beliefs we have, we act a certain way and choose to act in certain social environments. Personality is shaped by through reciprocal determinism. Our social environment affects our thoughts and actions, our thoughts and actions affect the social environment we choose, our actions influences our thoughts and social environment we choose…

Key terms: • Reciprocal determinism • Self-regulation • Self-efficacy


Self-regulation Self-regulation refers to setting goals, evaluating ones performance and adjusting ones behavior to achieving these goals in the context of ongoing feedback. People are constantly setting goals, applying their skills to reach their goals, monitoring their thoughts and actions to see if their goals are met. We try to seek out social environments (situations) we prefer and can be successful.


Reciprocal Determinism Cognitive factor

I don’t think I can learn to play a musical instrument

Behavior factor

I don’t play any musical instruments.

Environmental factor

I avoid situations that require me to display my lack of musical talent.

Cognitive factor

I have political leanings toward the Democrat or Republican political philosophy.

Behavior factor

I will vote for policies promoted by Democrats or Republicans


I attend will associate with other Democrats or Republicans


Cognitive factor I think I need to use drugs

Behavior factor I use drugs


I associate with other drugs uses

In order to understand the problems of drug abuse, you need to understand the process of reciprocal determinism, as well as the neurochemical basis of addiction (the neurotransmitter dopamine) and learning (classical conditioning and operant conditioning). You can easily replace this with criminal behavior. This helps explain some programs to help disrupt the cycle of criminal behavior and drug use.


Drug Tolerance

Tolerance: Decreased responsivity to a drug (usually you need to increase the dosage to get the same effects)

Tolerance

Dosage Effect

January

February

March

April


Compensatory Responses

Compensatory The body usually tries to maintain a responses: state of homeostasis.

When people use drugs, the body and brain attempts to counteract the effects of the drug and produces reactions that are opposite to that of the drug.

Dosage + Compensatory Response

= Drug Effect

Drug + - Counteracts drug

January

February

March

April


Withdrawal Effects

Withdrawal: The experience of strong reactions opposite to those produced by the drug

The withdrawal symptoms may be thought of the body’s compensating response still becoming active in the absence of the drug.

Dosage Compensatory Response

Drug Effect

Withdrawal

January

February

March

April

May


Examples of Drugs and their Compensatory Responses (that can lead to withdrawal effects)

Drug Drug Effects Withdrawal effects

Nicotine Increase in heart rate

Slowing of the heart rate

Heroin Slows stomach contracts, constipation

Stomach cramps, diarrhea

Amphetamines Manic sense of well-being and euphoria

Severe depression


Classically Conditioned Compensatory Responses

Dosage Compensatory Response

Drug Effect

Withdrawal

January

February

March

April

May 1

Withdrawal effects

May 2

Drug overdose


Techniques based on Operant Conditioning Operant conditioning is learning that is based on the consequences. • Behaviors that are reinforced are more likely to be

repeated. • Behaviors that are punished are less likely to be

repeated. • Shaping involves reinforcing successive

approximations of a desired behavior. • Extinction is when behavior is reduced due to the

absence of reinforcement.


In the example in the book, a 4-year old would actively resist going to bed. After falling asleep, the child would wake up 5 to 7 times a night screaming and shouting for hours. She would not stop crying unless her parents let her sleep in their bed. If the parents carried her back to her own bed, she would continue to wake up every hour returning to their bed crying. • The first step of treatment is to identify the specific

problem behavior and determine their baseline rate—how often does it occur.

• The therapist would target each problem behavior and objectively measure the progress. Once you have this, you need to identify very specific behavioral goals you wish to accomplish.


The parents were instructed to extinguish the girl’s screaming and crying by ignoring the behavior rather than reinforcing it (remember, the behavior/screaming will initially last longer than usual. As long as the parents don’t give in to their daughter’s crying, the crying should be reduced.) In addition desirable behaviors were positively reinforced with abundant praise, encouragement, social attention and other rewards when she engaged in the appropriate behavior (sleeping in her own bed quietly). The specific behaviors to be reduced were the following:

Psy100 Clark Ch15therapiesB

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