Behavior Therapy
Behavior Therapy comes directly from the Behavioristic school of psychology.
You'll recall that Behaviorism tried to be scientific. To be scientific, Behaviorism couldn't study or even acknowledge mental factors because they can't be observed.
Empiricism is one of the main requirements of science so something that can't be observed doesn't fit well within science. But behaviorists found they could use
learning theory to explain behavior without using any unobservable concepts like "mind" or "free will." Behaviorists say behavior is
caused by learning, not by an immaterial mind. Of course, you learn from the pairing of observable CSs with observable UCSs or
from having responses reinforced by observable positive and negative reinforcers.
Behaviorism brought science to clinical psychology which was in a shambles after years of Freud's unscientific psychoanalysis. Instead of
looking to the psychodynamic model to explain problems, behavior therapists simply say that your problem comes from what you have learned. The learning isn't good or bad, or "sick" or "healthy" - it just explains why you do things that make you unhappy and/or anxious.
Behaviorists brought to clinical psychology their scientific technology and approach. The first behavioristic approaches were founded on classical
conditioning principles (from Pavlov and others) and operant conditioning principles (mainly from Skinner). Originally classical conditioning techniques were called "Behavior Therapy," while those using operant conditioning were classified as "Behavior Modification." As the use and variety of behavioral methodology spread, both phrases came to mean any technique that draws upon empirical research or uses direct objective procedures, as opposed to indirect, unobservable, inferred, or implausible psychodynamic techniques . For example, "behavioral contracts" (where two parties agree on responsibilities and reciprocal obligations, and record the agreement in the form of a contract), "tough love" where the person is "held accountable" for their misdeeds (rather than giving in to their wheedling and pleas for sympathy) came to be seen as "behavior therapy/modification" – any kind of "common sense," " hardball," consistent approach was likely to given a name with "behavior" in the title. To include the newly scientifically sanitized mind , there was even "cognitive behavior modification" and "cognitive behavior therapy." The "rational" therapies ("rational-emotive therapy" "rational therapy," and "rational behavior therapy") because of their no-nonsense approach were also seen to be behavioristic.
Desensitization
Desensitization, developed by Joseph Wolpe, a psychiatrist from South Africa, was one of the first behavioral treatments to be introduced.
It was primarily a treatment based on classical conditioning and most commonly used for phobias. Wolpe was convinced that phobias were acquired through the pairing of a neutral stimulus with a terrifying consequence. Taking a page straight out of Pavlov’s book, he treated phobias as classically conditioned responses that could be extinguished by repeatedly presenting the phobic stimulus without the aversive UCS. To facilitate the extinction he presented the feared stimulus only after he had relaxed the patient through "progressive relaxation", since he knew that fear and relaxation could not occur together.
Although ideally it would have been better to actually have the actual phobic stimulus
present, this was often not possible.
If someone was afraid of a bulldozer, you could hardly bring one into your office to pair it with relaxation. Instead Wolpe believed
that imagined stimuli would work just as well as a real CS. In this way the therapist could put the client in a relaxed state and then
have her visualize a bulldozer. The pairing of the imagined stimulus with relaxation would then produce a cure of the phobia.
To make his therapy more general, Wolpe tried to adapt desensitization to disorders other than phobias. To do this, he assumed that
all psychological disorders were really phobias. In other words, phobic fears were the basis for whatever psychological problems the person had.
During the heyday of behaviorism (40s and 50s), desensitization with its heavy behavioral emphasis was the treatment of choice
for phobias and was often used in conjunction with other types of therapy. Because it was so widely used and was generally effective,
desensitization became the generic term for any treatment which lessened anxiety or fear. Although initially it was classified as
“behavior therapy,” in later years it has also been called “behavior modification,” although the latter term is more commonly
associated
with operant conditioning techniques.