Find Trusted Providers Offering Online Behavioral Therapy

What is Behavioral Therapy?

It is an action-based and highly focused technique that is rooted in the idea of behaviorism. This is a school of thought which emphasizes that we learn from our environment and conditioning process. Simply put, it focuses on specific learned behaviors and how they are influenced by the environment and people's mental states. Thus, behavior therapy presents a broad range of techniques used to change or eliminate the learned maladaptive behaviors and reinforce desirable behaviors. It aims to do so by manipulating the external environment and the physiological internal environment.

For example, if a child has difficulty completing their homework, the therapist can encourage homework completion (the desired behavior) by instituting a reward plan. This plan could include earning plus points each day the homework is completed and deducting points when it is not. These reward points can be traded for a tangible reward at the end of the week, for example, getting extra television time every Sunday evening. Parents can learn this technique and make sure that the reward is something the child actually wants, and it should specifically be associated with completing the homework (the goal). Over time, when the goal becomes easier and achievable, new goals can be set.

Since old learning led to the development of the problem, new learning patterns can fix the issues. Therefore, for this purpose, the therapist you choose must have the necessary certifications and degrees. Only a qualified behavioral therapist can understand maladaptive behaviors and help you cope effectively. But for this to work, you need to discuss your goals clearly with the professional and be committed to the process.

The Different Types

There are different types of behavioral therapies that depend on a variety of factors, including the condition being treated and the severity of the symptoms. Some of these include:

• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: CBT is a popular method that combines the techniques of behaviorism with cognitive techniques. Thus, this treatment approach focuses on how problematic thoughts lead to maladaptive and self-destructive behaviors. The long-term goal is to build positive thinking and behavioral patterns to help you achieve a better quality of life.
• Applied Behavior Analysis: This approach uses operant conditioning to modify or eliminate problematic behaviors. Operant conditioning is a technique where humans learn to behave in a way to obtain rewards or avoid punishments.
• Cognitive Behavioral Play Therapy: This is commonly used for the treatment of mental health conditions in children. Here, the therapist uses play to assess a child's behavior in order to prevent or treat psychological issues. Play is also used to assist a child in learning how to think and behave differently.
• Dialectical Behavioral Therapy: DBT strongly emphasizes emotional regulation, mindfulness, and accepting uncomfortable feelings and thoughts. Through DBT, a therapist can help a client find a healthy balance between change and acceptance.
• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: In ACT, clients have the ability to stop ignoring, rejecting, and resisting deeper emotions. Instead, they learn that these are common responses to specific situations and shouldn't prevent them from moving on in life. After acceptance of their emotions, clients commit to change their behavior as necessary.
• Exposure Therapy: This technique helps people overcome their fears of objects or situations using behavioral approaches. It incorporates strategies that expose people to the source of their fears while engaging in relaxation techniques. It is effective in treating particular phobias as well as other types of anxieties.
• Exposure and Response Prevention: ERP is largely used to treat OCD. The exposure part refers to confronting the thoughts and situations that trigger your obsessions. The response prevention refers to voluntarily choosing not to indulge in the compulsive behavior. All this is initially done under the guidance and supervision of a specialist.
• Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy: In REBT, the emphasis is on identifying negative, irrational, and destructive thoughts. Then, people actively challenge those thoughts and replace them with more rational and realistic ones.
• Social Learning Theory: focuses on how people learn through observations. Learning and behavior modification can result from seeing others rewarded or punished for their actions.

This treatment approach can effectively help an individual overcome their concerns. However, there are some limitations. This treatment cannot deal with any psychological factor that is genetic. Or if, in any case, the psychological aspect is influenced by any external factor and not their thoughts.

What are the Benefits?

Through behavior therapy, patients can achieve a better quality of life. It teaches patients to control their reactions to situations and changes in them. Some benefits of this treatment approach are:

• It helps achieve better social skills.
• It can help patients achieve better emotional expressions.
• It can lead to better pain management.
• It can reduce self-destructive incidents and actions.
• It can lead to better adjustment and response to unfamiliar situations.
• It can lead to fewer emotional outbursts.
• It can prevent patients from inflicting harm upon themselves.

Common Techniques

To understand how this treatment approach works, it is essential to understand the basic principles that contribute to its functioning. The techniques used are based on classical and operant conditioning theories.

• Classical Conditioning: Discovered by Ivan Pavlov, this entails a type of unconscious and automatic learning. The techniques used are:
  • Aversion Therapy: Disorders like substance use disorder and alcohol use disorder are frequently treated using aversion therapy. It works by teaching individuals to associate a stimulus (something that induces a response) that is pleasant but unhealthy with an extremely unpleasant stimulus. This unpleasant stimulus may also cause discomfort. For instance, a therapist can teach you to associate alcohol with a bad memory.
  • Flooding: This procedure involves exposing the client rapidly and intensely to objects or situations that invoke fear. It is used frequently to treat phobias. The person is stopped from fleeing or evading the circumstance throughout the process.
  • Systematic Desensitization: This technique helps you become less sensitive to particular triggers and is frequently used as a phobia treatment. Throughout the treatment, you learn to replace your fear responses with relaxation responses. For this, you must first master relaxation and breathing techniques. Once you've learned these methods, your therapist will ask you to use them while gradually exposing yourself to your fears.
• Operant Conditioning: This focuses on using rewards and punishments to influence the frequency of a behavior. Positive consequences make behaviors more likely to repeat themselves in the future, whereas negative ones make behaviors less likely to repeat themselves. The common techniques used are:
  • Behavior Modeling: This process involves learning through observation and mirroring other people's behavior. By observing another person demonstrate the desired behaviors, modeling enables people to learn new abilities or acceptable behaviors without just depending on reinforcement or punishment.
  • Extinction: This is the technique where reinforcement provided for problem behavior (often unintentionally) is discontinued in order to decrease or eliminate the occurrence of that behavior.
  • Token Economies: This technique focuses on reinforcement to change behavior. Parents and teachers often use token economies, which let children gain tokens for engaging in preferred activities and lose tokens for engaging in unwanted behaviors. Then, these tokens can be exchanged for gifts like candy, toys, or more time to play with a favorite toy.

What Conditions Can it Help Treat?

This treatment approach can treat a wide range of conditions. These include:

• Depression: Behavioral Therapy for depression targets the behaviors that feed into that depression. It then aims to bring about changes in the depressed client's daily life by helping the client plan more activities they enjoy, helping them develop social skills, or generally having the client track their emotions and actions.
• Anxiety and Panic Disorders: These can be treated using Systematic Desensitization and Exposure Therapy. The client is exposed to an object or situation that induces panic while engaging in relaxation techniques. Your sensitivity to specific triggers can thus be reduced.
• Alcohol and Substance Abuse Disorders: These are often treated using the Aversion Therapy technique. The therapist urges the client to form an association between alcohol or a narcotic and unpleasant memory.
• Attention Deficit Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: In children with this disorder, behavior therapy can improve behavior, self-control, and self-esteem. A therapist can use reinforcement to encourage a particular behavior.
• Autism Spectrum Disorder: Children can benefit from this treatment by distinguishing positive and negative behaviors and achieving positive goals. Goals would be set after the child has been observed. An autistic behavioral therapist would reinforce desired behaviors in the child while ignoring undesired ones.
• Phobias: To treat phobias, Exposure Therapy and Flooding technique can be used as a part of Behavioral Therapy. This involves exposing the client to their fears and preventing them from escaping the situation.
• Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: This treatment approach can be used to treat OCD by using the ERP technique. It is used to decouple a distressing stimulus and associated compulsions. The diagnosed person is exposed to situations that create intrusive and distressing thoughts without allowing them to engage in the ritual which reduces distress.

Get Counseling from a Trusted Therapist With DocVita

It can be intimidating to acknowledge and seek help for a mental health issue or emotional challenges in your life, but you must do so. With Behavioral Therapy, you can better comprehend and overcome the challenges preventing you from leading a good, wholesome life.

This treatment enables you to learn and become your own therapist. However, in order to understand and successfully sustain that relationship with yourself, you must first speak with a reliable provider. Experts in their profession, they are knowledgeable about the most recent research and therapeutic methods that can help you.

At DocVita, we can help you connect with various behavioral therapists who would be happy to assist you in moving toward living your best life. Our therapists are sympathetic and cognizant of the circumstances in your life. Based on your information, they can develop the best treatment solutions specifically designed to meet your individual needs. Visit our website right away to book your first appointment.