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Chapter 3.4

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Behavior Therapy
❑ It is a form of treatment for a problem in which a trained
person deliberately establishes a professional
relationship with the patient, with the objective of
removing or modifying existing symptoms and
promoting positive personality, growth, and
development.

❑ Basic assumption: Behaviors acquired through

inadequate learning can be corrected through
appropriate learning experiences.

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Major Assumptions
❑ All behavior is learned.

❑ Human beings are passive organisms.

❑ Maladaptive behavior can be unlearned and replaced by

adaptive behavior.

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Therapeutic Goals
❑ General goals: Increase personal choice and create new
conditions for learning.

❑ Client and therapist collaboratively decide the concrete,

measurable, and objective treatment goals.
▪ Goals:
➢ must be clear, concrete, and agreed on by the client and the
counselor
➢ can be altered throughout the process

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Therapist‘s Function and Role

❑ active and directive

❑ consultant and problem solvers.

❑ Conduct a thorough functional assessment, formulate

initial treatment goals, use strategies for behavior
change, evaluate the success of the change, and conduct
a follow-up assessment.

❑ Emphasis: To help clients maintain changes over time

and acquire behavioral and cognitive coping skills.

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Client‘s Experience in Therapy

❑ To be taught concrete skills.

❑ To be motivated to change.

❑ To enlarge the options for adaptive behaviors.

❑ To continue implementing new behaviors.

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Types of Behavior Therapy

1. Behavior Modification

2. Aversion Therapy

3. Assertiveness Training

4. Systematic Desensitization

5. Implosive Therapy (Flooding)

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Types of Behavior Therapy

1. Behavior Modification
▪ “Simple Extinction”
▪ Learned behavior pattern becomes waste or disappear if it is
not reinforced.

Eg. Nail biting - Punishment

Every time Ema, a nine-year-old girl bites her nails, her mother spats
her hands.

Attendance in class – Reward

If you will regularly attend each of your virtual classes, your parents will
give you Php 100.00 a day.

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Types of Behavior Therapy

2. Aversion Therapy
▪ The patient is conditioned to avoid undesirable behavior or
symptoms by associating them with painful or unpleasant
experiences.

Eg. Alcohol abuse – unpleasant memory

The therapist may teach the client to associate alcohol with an
unpleasant memory.

▪ 20-40 sessions – each session lasting about 1 hour.

▪ A booster session may be given after completion of treatment.

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Types of Behavior Therapy

3. Assertiveness Training
▪ The patient is given the training to bring about changes in
emotional and other behavioral pattern by asserting himself.

▪ Expressed ideas and feelings – should be confident and not

aggressive

▪ Behavioral Rehearsal - patient acts out problematic

interpersonal interactions with the therapist

▪ Can be used for mentally healthy and ill individuals.

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Types of Behavior Therapy

4. Systematic Desensitization
▪ The patient is exposed to progressively more anxiety-
provoking stimuli and taught relaxation techniques.

Eg. Disruptive Spider Phobia

Step 1: Progressive Muscle Relaxation technique
Step 2: Constructing a Stimulus Hierarchy
Step 3: Exposure

▪ Aim: To gradually remove the fear response of a phobia using

counter-conditioning.

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Types of Behavior Therapy

5. Implosive Therapy (Flooding)
▪ The patient is exposed directly to a maximum intensity fear-
producing situation either in imagination or in real life.

▪ Indication: specific phobias

Eg. Intense phobia of lizard

During the psychotherapy, the therapist puts a rubberized lizard on the
table. For a minute the patient may get scared but gradually may start
handling a rubberized lizard while taking.

▪ Issues: (1) exposure may make symptoms worse; (2) can cause
people to feel and confront things that they have worked hard
to avoid

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Summary
▪ Behavioral Psychotherapy focuses on observable and measurable
behaviors.

▪ Primary goal: overt behavioral change

▪ Cause of behavior: classical or operant conditioning

➢ Behaviorists center their efforts on altering individuals’ learned
contingencies or breaking their learned associations.

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