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Other Behavior Therapies
Social skills trainingis a behavior therapy, based on operant conditioning and Albert
Bandura’s social learning theory, to improve interpersonal skills by using modeling, behav-
ioral rehearsal, and shaping. With modeling, the client is encouraged to observe socially
skilled people in order to learn appropriate behaviors. In behavioral rehearsal, the client
practices the appropriate social behaviors through role-playing in structured situations. The
therapist helps the client by providing positive reinforcement and corrective feedback.
Shaping involves reinforcement of more and more complex social situations. Through
social skills training, people with social phobias learn to make friends or date, and former
mental patients learn to deal normally with people outside of the hospital. Biofeedback
training is a widely used behavioral therapy that involves giving the individual immediate
information about the degree to which he/she is able to change anxiety-related responses
such as heart rate, muscle tension, and skin temperature to facilitate improved control
of the physiological process and, therefore, lessen physiological arousal.
Behavior therapies have been found effective for treating anxiety disorders (generalized
anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder),
alcohol and drug addictions, bedwetting, sexual dysfunctions, and autism.
Psychoanalysts discount the quick cure offered by behaviorists. Since behaviorists are
unconcerned with the cause of anxiety, analysts believe that it will resurface in a new form.
Until the unconscious conflict is made conscious, the behaviorist is only “curing” the symptom
of the problem; so through symptom substitution, a new problem will occur. The so-called
curedsmoker suddenly begins another compulsive habit, like eating or drinking.
Cognitive-Behavioral Approaches
Cognitive therapists, sometimes called cognitive-behavioral therapists, think that abnormal
behavior is the result of faulty thought patterns. Many psychologists consider cognitive
therapy to be an insight therapy. Cognitive-behavior therapy helps clients change both the
way they think and the way they behave. Through cognitive restructuring, or turning the
faulty, disordered thoughts into more realistic thoughts, the client should improve.
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy
Albert Ellis developed Rational Emotive Therapy(RET), which is also called rational
emotive behavior therapy (REBT),based on the idea that anxiety, guilt, depression, and other
psychological problems result from self-defeating thoughts. The therapist has the client
confront irrational thoughts by discussing his/her actions, his/her beliefs about those
actions and finally the consequences of those beliefs. The actions, beliefs, and consequences
he called the ABCs of treatment. For instance, a young man is feeling guilty about not
having helped his mother more before she died. Ellis might have confronted this guilty
belief with a statement like “And you were the only person in the entire universe who could
have helped her, right?” While defending these beliefs, the client may see how absurd they
truly are. Ellis believed that much of this thinking involves the tyranny of the “shoulds,”
what we believe we must do, rather than what is actually realistic or necessary.
Cognitive Triad Therapy
Aaron Beck also developed a cognitive therapy to alleviate faulty and negative thoughts. His
cognitive triadlooks at what a person thinks about his/her Self, his/her World, and his/her
Future. Depressed individuals tend to have negative perceptions in all three areas. As noted
by Martin Seligman, depressed individuals tend to think they caused the negative events,
the negative events will affect everything they do, and the negative events will last forever.
Such thoughts and beliefs lead to low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety. The goal of therapy
Treatment of Psychological Disorders ❮ 233