Behavior therapy: principles and applications

¶ … Evolution and Development of Behavioral Therapy

The 20th century approach to psychology is notable because, while there was an emphasis on the medical approach to treating psychological disorders, there was also a focus on nonphysiological therapies that began to gain some credence in the medical profession. While nonmedical interventions were generally dismissed, "at least some nonmedical practices were no longer widely regarded by either professionals or the general public as quackery. An important contributor to the increased acceptance and status of nonmedical therapies was their enhanced relationship with science" (O'Donohue & Krasner, Year). These nonmedical therapies gained greater and greater usage in the mental health arena, and eventually came to be regarded not only as complementary treatments to standard medical interventions, but as "necessary components in the treatment of problems such as depression, attention deficit disorder, schizophrenia, and many of the anxiety disorders"(O'Donohue & Krasner, Year). One of the areas of psychology that received considerable early attention was behaviorism.

It is important to understand that behaviorism did not simply develop as an adjunct of the science of psychology, but was influenced by the "philosophical, social, cultural, political, and ethical context in which it [was] embedded" (Fishman & Franks, Year). In other words, behavior therapy and behaviorism could not have developed without the prior interest in the behavioral sciences such as psychology, sociology, and anthropology, which led to an increase in interest in how humans behave and how human interactions impact one another. "Behavior is defined broadly to include both overt actions and observable manifestations of covert affective and cognitively mediated processes. These processes may occur at several levels: psychophysiological, individual, small group, organizational, and community" (Fishman & Franks, Year). Behavior therapy is therapy designed to change behavior in a constructive manner. Moreover, behavior therapy is more than a therapeutic innovation; it is considered a major conceptual advance because it approaches human psychology from a totally different perspective than prior therapeutic approaches.

Ivan Pavlov is, in many ways, the father of modern behavior therapy. Pavlov documented early conditioned stimuli and conditioned responses in his now infamous dog experiments. While Pavlov's early work was experimental and descriptive, his students began to dabble in how Pavlov's techniques could be used for behavior modification. In fact, "behavior therapy has benefited enormously from the methodologically sophisticated procedure for the conditioning of neurotic or anxiety reactions pioneered by Pavlov and his students" (Wolpe & Plaud, 1997). Conditioning principles not only helped develop behavior therapy, but remain relevant to modern behavior therapy. This is because Pavlov and his students discovered that conditioning methods could neutralize the impact of aversive stimuli, which is one of the primary goals in much of modern behavioral therapy; the elimination of responses to stimuli that is perceived as aversive.

One of the interesting contributions that Pavlov made to the field of behavior therapy was to observe that innate personality type could impact conditioning. He noted that some of the dogs in his experiments seemed to have naturally friendlier dispositions, while others were more aggressive, and he theorized that human beings had similar differences in innate personality (Wolpe & Plaud, 1997). This led him to the conclusion that different people have different sensitivity levels in their nervous systems; some individuals overrespond to weak stimuli, while others fails to respond to significant stimuli (Wolpe & Plaud, 1997). Moreover, the natural response to the stimuli would have an impact on conditioning (Wolpe & Plaud, 1997).

By 1913, Watson was advocating behaviorism as a branch of psychology. He wrote "Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It," which was published in the Psychological Review, and described psychology as the purely objective branch of science (Fishman & Franks, Year). He believed that the theoretical goal of behaviorism was to predict and control behavior, and that the behaviorist was not concerned with motivations and would not differentiate between man and animal (Fishman & Franks, Year). Instead, it would focus on objectively measurable criteria, so that it could be described in the same manner as other sciences. While Watson was writing about behaviorism, Pavlov and his students were doing much of the groundwork to demonstrate the type of conditioning that plays a critical role in behavior change.

While Pavlov and his students may have been the first people to really describe conditioning, they failed to translate that into an active and thriving treatment modality. That does not mean that learning theories were not used in behavior modification. Perhaps one of the most famous studies was a clinical demonstration conducted by Mary Cover Jones, a student of Watson. "Jones speculated that if fears could be established by conditioning, perhaps they could be eliminated by use of the same principles. Her famous study was conducted with 3-year-old Peter, who was afraid of a variety of furry objects like rabbits, fur coats, and cotton. As Peter sat eating his favorite foods, a caged rabbit was brought into the room at sufficient distance not to interfere with his eating. Over time, the rabbit was brought progressively closer until it was close enough for him to touch" (Glass & Arnkoff, Year). This eventually led to extinction of the fear reaction, and may have been the first clinical description of behavior modification in a human subject.