THERAPY AND POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGYapproach is flooding, which is akin to dropping the client in at the
deep end – that is, subjecting them to an extreme form of what they
most fear. It’s a risky strategy, but the idea is that by surviving exposure
to their worst nightmare, the client learns that there is nothing to be
afraid of.
As well as the unlearning of fears, other behavioural techniques
include aversion therapy, in which an unwanted behaviour – such as
excess drinking – is repeatedly paired with a punishment of some
kind. This is the rationale behind the drug disulfiram (also known as
Antabuse), which induces nausea whenever alcohol is consumed. Some
institutions employ behavioural principles on a large scale by using
token economies, in which tokens are exchanged for privileges, as a way
to encourage good behaviour and deter unwanted behaviour.
Cognitive therapy focuses on irrational and negatively distorted
thoughts, in line with the view of Epictetus, the Greek Stoic, that “Men
are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them.”
By this account, a person’s fear of, say, bridges is caused by their beliefs
about bridges, such as that they might collapse or that one could easily
fall off them. The cognitive approach to therapy was developed by the
US psychiatrist Aaron Beck and by the US psychologist Albert Ellis. Both
had trained as psychoanalysts, but became disillusioned by the analytical
approach, especially its lack of scientific rigour.
Ellis’s technique was known as Rational Emotive Therapy, part of
which involves identifying an activating event (“A”) behind a client’s
problems, the emotional consequence of that event (“C”), together with
the client’s beliefs (“B”) linking the two – known as the ABC model.
For example, a woman with obsessive-compulsive disorder may recall
her habitual act of locking and unlocking the door three times when
leaving the house (A), the anxiety relief that act brings (C), because she
believes that performing such a ritual will prevent something bad from
happening (B). Beck’s approach was called Cognitive Restructuring, and
involves encouraging the client to think about their thinking, in order
to identify the systematic distortions and biases in their attitudes to
themselves, the world and the future. For example, a client might reveal
that they have a habit of thinking negatively – perceiving unfortunate
circumstances as evidence for their own inadequacies, seeing lack of
opportunity and fairness in the world, and assuming that bad things are
going to continue happening to them.
In practice, one way irrational thoughts are identified is with the help
of written thought-records. The client thinks back to situations that have