What is Behavioral Therapy?
Behavior therapy is a general term for a class of psychotherapy techniques aimed at reducing or improving a patient's symptoms or adverse behaviors. Its development has a history of hundreds of years, and has the characteristics of strong pertinence, easy operation, short course of treatment, and quick results.
- The concept of behavioral therapy was first
- 1.
- 1. Based on the learning principles in general psychology, no need to introduce special theoretical hypotheses
- 2. Deny the genetic and instinctive role of behavior, and consider that environment and education determine everything, and determine the formation and resolution of symptoms
- 3. Only the observable parties' explicit behavior is emphasized in the research subject and treatment. Even the implicit language habits are considered to have evolved from the explicit language habits.
- 4. It is considered that there is no qualitative difference between abnormal behavior and normal behavior, but only a quantitative difference, that is, excess and deficiency. The essence of behavioral therapy is to resolve the excess response, and establish the lack and deficiency response, that is, "remove the excess , Or make up for it "
- 5. Personality is the sum of all actions and the final product of various habit systems. Rebuilding personality is the establishment of new behavior habits.
- 6, behavioral therapy only needs to discuss the matter, without having to consider the underlying reasons.
- 1.Identify what needs treatment
Behavior Therapy System Desensitization
- This method was created in the 1950s by psychiatrist Volpa. It is one of the earliest systematic applications of behavioral therapy. Originally, Volpa applied this method in animal experiments. He put a cat in a cage and gave him a strong electric shock whenever food appeared to cause the cat to eat. After repeated iterations, the cat had a strong fear reaction and refused to eat. It eventually developed into a fearful response to the entire environment in the cage and laboratory. So-called "experimental phobia" has formed. Then, Walpa corrected the cat with a systematic desensitization method, and gradually made the cat eliminate the fear reaction. As long as there was no more electric shock, and eventually returned to the cage to eat, there was no more fear. Since then, Walpa has applied systemic desensitization therapy to human clinical practice. When implementing this therapy, we must first understand the stimulus situation of the patient's abnormal behaviors (such as anxiety and fear), and arrange all the anxiety reactions into "anxiety class" in order from weak to strong. Then teach the patient a reaction mode that counteracts anxiety and fear, that is, the relaxation reaction, which makes the patient feel relaxed and relieve the anxiety; then, the relaxation reaction technology is gradually and systematically matched with those from the weak to the strong anxiety class. To form an interactive inhibition situation (ie, gradually relax the reaction to suppress those weaker anxiety reactions, and then suppress those stronger anxiety reactions). In this way, the anxiety reactions of different strengths and weaknesses formed due to adverse conditioning (that is, learning) are systematically eliminated from weak to strong one by one, and finally the most intense anxiety reactions (that is, what we want to treat) Target behavior) is also eliminated (ie, desensitization). The abnormal behavior has been overcome, and the patient has re-established a normal behavior that is accustomed to exposure to harmful stimuli and is no longer sensitive. This is systemic desensitization therapy. It is used clinically to treat phobia, obsessive-compulsive neurosis, and some maladaptive sexual behaviors. [1]
Behavior therapy aversion therapy
- Aversion therapy is a way to help people (including patients) treat the target behavior (or symptoms) that they want to quit with some kind of disgusting
- Behavioral therapy related books
- Aversive stimuli can include painful stimuli (such as rubber band pain and electrical stimulation), emetics (such as apomorphine) and unbearable odor or sound stimuli. Food deprivation or social interaction deprivation measures can also be taken. It can also make people appear extremely disgusting or unacceptable imagination in their minds through imagination, so as to achieve the purpose of aversion and reinforcement. For example, to quit alcohol abuse, you can do it at the moment of your personal life habits, and use pungent stimuli such as vomiting morphine or electric shock to cause an aversion to alcohol, thereby preventing and eliminating the original alcohol abuse. . For another example, to quit smoking, you can use "quit smoking sugar", "quit smoking mouthwash", etc., which can directly or indirectly make smokers feel an uncomfortable odor when smoking, and have an aversion to smoking, and eventually give up smoking delinquenent conduct. [2]
Behavior therapy
- Behavior shaping (shaping). This is a behavioral therapy technique designed based on Skinner's operating conditional reflection principle, which aims to cause some desired good behavior by strengthening (ie rewarding). Progressive homework is generally used, and rewards (ie, reinforcements) are given when the homework is completed to promote the increase in the number of times that good behavior is expected. Some people think that one of the most effective reinforcement factors (that is, the reward method) is a behavior record sheet, which requires patients to correctly record their progress every hour and draw a chart. Doing so is a powerful driving force for behavior improvement. According to the progress shown in the chart, the therapist can also apply other strengthening factors, and give praise or reward when the performance of the work exceeds a certain index. In addition, patients can get their favorite food or entertainment, in this way to shape new behaviors to replace old and abnormal behaviors. In order to maintain and consolidate the treatment effect, when applying this treatment method, special attention needs to be paid to how to help patients transform the behavior learned in a specific treatment situation into the real environment of daily life at home or work. The scope of this method includes speaking in children with autism, improving or eliminating behaviors of phobias, anorexia nervosa, obesity, and other neuroses; it can also be used to improve or promote social and work behaviors in patients with schizophrenia; In social education, it can be used for the training of low energy people and for treating certain sexual dysfunctions.
Behavioral therapy
- Token therapy. This is a behavioral therapy based on Skinner's theory of operating conditional reflections, especially the principle of conditional reinforcement. Through some kind of reward system, when patients make expected good behavior performance, they can get rewards immediately, which can be strengthened, so that the good behaviors shown by patients can be formed and consolidated, and their bad behaviors can be eliminated.
- Tokens, as positive reinforcements, can be expressed in different forms, such as in symbolic ways such as scorecards, chips and securities. Tokens should have functions like "coins" in real life, which can be exchanged for a variety of reward items or activities that are of interest to patients, thereby gaining value. The advantages of using tokens as reinforcements are that they are not limited by time and space, are extremely convenient to use, and can be continuously strengthened; as long as the patient has the expected behavior, the reinforcement can be achieved immediately; use tokens in exchange for different physical objects Therefore, a certain preference of the recipient can be satisfied, and the satisfaction of the physical object as a reinforcement can be avoided without reducing the motivation for pursuing reinforcement (reward). And when the patient has bad behavior, the token can be deducted, so that the positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement can work at the same time, resulting in the effect of double reinforcement.
- Token therapy can be used not only for individuals but also in collective behavioral corrections. It can be widely used in hospitals, schools, and even in psychiatric hospitals, special education classes, and work schools, correctional facilities, and prisons. Clinical practice has shown that in the treatment of children with ADHD, drug addicts and alcoholics, the token therapy has a good effect in the rehabilitation of mental patients with decline.
Behavioral therapy exposure therapy
- Exposure therapy. This is a behavioral treatment technique mainly used to treat phobias. The principle of treatment is to allow patients to imagine the concept of terror for a long time or to be exposed to a serious terror environment, so as to achieve the purpose of relieving fear. In 1967 Steinfur and Levis first reported a behavioral therapy that gradually exposed patients to horror situations to treat phobias. This was the earliest exposure therapy used, but it was then called blasting therapy. This method has some things in common with systemic desensitization therapy, such as the need to expose the patient to a horrible object (thing or situation). However, there are some differences between them: In the implementation of exposure therapy, there is no need to adopt relaxation or other counter-terrorism measures when a terrorist situation occurs. Exposure therapy requires patients to be exposed to horror situations for a longer period of time. For patients with severe square horror and severe anxiety, each treatment takes about 2 hours or longer. System desensitization is generally only effective for milder phobias; while exposure therapy is often used to treat severe patients. Exposure therapy can be used not only for individual treatment but also for collective treatment. For square phobia, 5-6 patients can be treated at the same time, that is, they are exposed to the horror situation at the same time, and the effect is the same as that of individual application.
Behavioral therapy relaxation response training
- Relaxation response training, which is a behavior training technique that uses self-adjustment training to relax the body and thereby relax the entire body and mind, to counteract the tension reaction of sympathetic nerve excitement caused by psychological stress, thereby eliminating tension and strengthening the body. . The general relaxation response training method uses the progressive relaxation method pioneered by Jacobsson. This method allows participants to learn to contract or relax their skeletal muscle groups alternately, and at the same time, they can experience the degree of tension and relaxation of their own muscles and consciously feel the degree of tightness, lightness, and warmth of the limbs and body, thereby achieving relaxation. Quiet effect. Qigong in China, yoga in India, and meditation in Japan all play similar roles. It is generally believed that no matter what kind of relaxation response training technology, as long as the relaxation response is generated, it must contain four components: a quiet environment; a passive and comfortable posture; a calm mood and relaxed muscles; inner spirit (usually through repeated meditation) A voice, a word or a short sentence).
- According to experimental studies at home and abroad, relaxation response training can produce the following physiological effects: reduced sympathetic nervous system activity, reduced oxygen consumption, slowed heart rate and respiratory rate, decreased systolic blood pressure, and brain waves are mostly a waves. Therefore, in general, therapies that produce a relaxing response can counteract tension and anxiety. Relaxation response therapy is simple and easy, and can also be self-trained, so it is not only an important part of the system desensitization method; but also combined with the biofeedback instrument can receive the effect that the biofeedback treatment alone cannot get; for hypertension , Insomnia, headache, arrhythmia, and various diseases caused by psychological stress (stress) have good effects. Today, various relaxation response training techniques have been widely used in various countries around the world as an effective method for people to strengthen their physique, prevent and treat diseases, especially chronic diseases. It is also widely used in sports competitions, literary performances, and all situations that may cause tension and anxiety to combat tension and anxiety, so as to maintain and exert good competition and performance effects.