Example Of Essay On Behavior Therapies

There are different types of behavioral therapies and these pages give us insight about specific techniques called systematic desensitization and aversive conditioning. These techniques are widely used in psychotherapy helping clients to overcome their problems. Some of them give better results and some of them are not productive as we expected them to be.
Therapy called exposure therapy, first mentioned by Jones, unfortunately found its field of application more than 30 years after it was discovered. It was revived by Wolpe and ever since it is widely used in therapeutic practice. This therapy consists of exposing clients to sources of their fears expecting them to habituate to fearful stimuli and free themselves from dysfunctional response. One of the most used techniques of exposure therapy is called systematic desensitization. This is a very simple technique which claims that the best way to get rid of the fear is to cope with it. Exposure to situation or objects that are producing fear is systematic and it involves step by step approach. This means that the client will first learn to relax and then be gradually exposed to anxiety provoking situations or objects. The client first relaxes and then imagines situation that causes mild anxiety. If the client feels discomfort at any moment he will receive instruction to focus on muscle relaxation and stop thinking on mental images that produce anxiety and tension. While combining physical and mental relaxation with imagination of the situations that produce anxiety the level of anxiety gradually decreases and finally disappears during the therapeutic process. After dealing with situations that produce mild anxiety the therapist instructs to progress onto situations that cause greater discomfort by pairing them with relaxed state of body and mind. This is very efficient technique especially when it comes to virtual reality exposure. Virtual reality exposure therapy is cost effective compared to desensitization in vivo.
Aversive conditioning is actually the reverse systematic desensitization. Here the client learns aversion toward stimuli that caused pleasure earlier. The therapy involves associating unpleasant feelings to harmful behavior such as alcohol consumption. However, the results of this therapy are not always lasting. Even though negative emotions can attach to unwanted behavior, the cognition interferes with outcome of the therapy. Clients know that the aversion is caused by the therapy which results in repeated performance of negative behaviors once that the therapy is ended. This is why aversive conditioning should be combined with cognitive therapy so that we could get long lasting effects.
These techniques are very simple and time saving. I am really delighted by their simplicity and think that if I had a problem of any kind I would first try out one of these techniques.