Behavioural Therapy
Behavioural therapy is concerned with changing observable behaviour and is based on the concept that learnt behaviours are often reinforced throughout life.
Behavioural therapists work with the concept that individuals often repeat behaviour that is rewarded by others and decrease behaviour that is chastised. In this way, human personality traits are made up of a collection of learnt behaviours, often created in childhood, which can be changed over time using techniques to ‘recondition’ learnt behaviours. Behavioural therapy is not concerned with the reason for the behaviour, only with finding a resolution to this in order for life to become easier and free from negative learnt behaviours. Behavioural therapy is used to provide practical solutions to learnt behaviours.
Important behavioural psychologists include Ivan Pavlov (1849 – 1936), J B Watson (1878 – 1958) and B F Skinner (1904 – 1990). Behavioural psychologists conducted many experiments to demonstrate how behaviours were learnt and how these could change under different stimuli.
Cognitive Therapy
Cognitive therapy is concerned with the feelings that accompany human reponses towards stimuli. Cognitive therapies work on changing the emotional reponses and the development of positive feelings and realistic perspectives towards stimuli. Similar to Behavioural therapy, Cognitive therapy is not concerned with the reason for these emotional responses; but simply with developing new thought patterns that lead to more rewarding experiences.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
Cognitive and Behavioural Therapies are often combined to produce a therapeutic model which can be used to treat a wide range of behaviours. The work of Albert Ellis (1913 – present) led to the creation of REBT (Rational Emotive Behavioural Technique) one of the most widely used cognitive behavioural therapies available.
CBT therapies can be very useful for dealing with issues such as phobias, eating disorders, fears and anxieties; as they can help individuals change behaviours and find more satisfying ways to live. A great deal of research has been provided over the years to show the positive use of CBT. Other therapeutic models are equally useful, although research funding has not always been available to show the effectiveness of alternative models.
Uses and Limitations
CBT is useful for discovering new ways of responding to anxieties on a practical and emotional level. CBT is not concerned with the underlying reasons for the phobia, eating disorder, fear or anxiety arising in the first place, and does not pay attention to the causes of the negative response. Therapists who criticise CBT stress that the underlying responses have not been dealt with and only the symptoms have been addressed; thereby suggesting that the symptoms can re-surface at another point in life with equally debilitating consequences. For this reason, individuals who wish to explore the root cause of their issue would be better placed to access other therapeutic approaches more concerned with identifying and understanding the source of the issue such as Psychodynamic or Humanistic therapies.