Behavior Therapy Strategies and Reactivity Measures

¶ … feelings/Reactions Behavior Therapy Every behavior in behavior therapy makes sense and they are to be believed to result from punishment and reinforcement patterns from the surroundings. The treatment itself does not focus on the base of the problem but on the changing the present factors of that particular behavior including tantrums, biased thinking and feared situations. Behavior therapy has full support of research as there are a lot of studies that support its effectiveness in the issues including addiction, schizophrenia, eating disorder, depression etc.(Wedding & Corsini, 2013).

Several studies demonstrate the different types of problems and people's reactions including depression, anxiety disorder, substance abuse etc. Behavior therapy uses different strategies that not only understands the core of the problem but also helps the individual to overcome it on their own strengths. Different behavior strategies have been found effective in the issue of anxiety disorder. A person under this problem experiences panic attacks under different situations, hence several relaxation strategies are needed to address this problem.

Depression is another issue that is experienced by a lot of people and different cognitive behavioral therapy approaches are applied including couples therapy, nondirective supportive psychotherapy, and psychodynamic therapy. Behavior therapy takes into account the feelings and thoughts of the client and uses them to bring out positivity to help the individual overcome the issue (Wedding & Corsini, 2013). Treatment and assessment in behavior therapy go together and every person is assessed before the treatment starts.

Assessment is continually done as the therapist has to check the progress of the individual as well. Assessment of the behavior is done for several purposes including identifying the 'target behaviors' in order to select the appropriate and correct treatment for the individual. Multiple methods of therapy are also used because every individual's reactions differ under different situations. The therapist uses different methods for assessment, which includes psycho-physiological measures, self-report symptom measures, checklists, diaries, monitoring forms, observation and interviews.

The behaviors identified by both the client and the therapist are distressing to either the individual under assessment or the people around him (Wedding & Corsini, 2013). These behaviors are chosen in order to increase the flexibility in the behavior of the client. Functional analysis is a behavior assessment which identifies the elements that are responsible for controlling the target behavior. This analysis also includes manipulating those elements in order to measure their effect on the target behaviors.

For example, assuming that a child throws tantrums every time he is given attention by his/her parents; the therapist would test the hypothesis by telling the parents to stop giving the child their attention for a one or two weeks and then evaluate the impact of that on the behavior of the child. Another form of assessment is 'behavioral interviews' which helps the therapist to observe the behavior of the client and understand it for further diagnosis (Wedding & Corsini, 2013).

Another purpose of behavior interview is to develop the consequences and antecedents of the behavior targeted. Furthermore, the therapist also collects samples of different behaviors of the client from eye contact or communication style which might not be told to the client. Another form of therapy is behavioral observation which includes observation of the individual to assess consequences, antecedents and behavior of the client. Analog observation includes the observation of the client in a simulated situation while in naturalistic observation, the therapist observes the client in a natural surroundings.

Reactivity is one of the biggest challenges in behavioral observation as it occurs as.