If this therapy works, clients who used to be mildly anxious when thinking
about standing on a 2-foot stool can imagine (and eventually perform) look-ing out over the city from the top of a tall building without experiencing fear.
Aversion therapy is another example of classical conditioning used to al-
ter problem behaviors. Here therapists try to rid clients of undesirable beha-viors by pairing aversive images with the behavior. For example, for a client
trying to quit smoking, the image of a cigarette might be paired with images
of becoming nauseated and vomiting.
Operant Conditioning Applications
Sometimes therapy can be as basic as reinforcing desired behaviors and pun-ishing undesirable ones. However, this is more difficult than it may sound.
Behavior modification therapists begin this type of treatment by identifying
the target behavior and defining it in specific operational terms. For example,
what would you reinforce or punish when a child ’s problem is “acting imma-
ture”? A behavior therapist would probably interview parents and teachers to
determine which specific immature behaviors they wanted to reduce. Next,
the therapist would want to determine a baseline of behavior frequency.
How do you know if you ’re reducing the frequency of a behavior if you
don’t know how often it occurs now? Through observation or interviews,
the therapist might find that a child throws an average of two and a half tan-trums per week.
Once we know how often the behavior occurs under the current system
of rewards and punishments, we change the contingencies. If it ’s a desired be-
havior, the environment is altered so the client is rewarded for it. If it ’s an un-
desired behavior, punishment is introduced or reinforcement is reduced.
Ideally, appropriate responses are reinforced at the same time undesired be-
havior is extinguished or punished. In the case of the child throwing tantrums,
parents might be told to stop rewarding the action with their attention and
concern. In addition, punishments might be introduced, such as not allowing
the child to watch television for 24 hours after a tantrum. At the same time,
the child should be reinforced for handling frustrating situations in an appro-
priate way, such as by seeking help. The frequency of the target behavior is
monitored throughout the therapy. After a few weeks, the therapist can see if
the treatment is working or if adjustments need to be made. If the child is
down to one tantrum a week, the treatment will probably continue for a few
more weeks until the tantrums disappear entirely. If they are still occurring
two and a half times a week, a new therapy program may need to be
developed.
A therapist who wants to change a large number of behaviors for a large
number of people at once might use another treatment system based on oper-ant conditioning called a token economy. People in a well-defined institutional
unit, such as a psychiatric ward or a class, are given the opportunity to earn to-
kens (for example, poker chips) worth a certain number of points. They can
exchange these tokens for more tangible rewards, such as snack food or extra
privileges. Psychiatric patients might be given 2 tokens for making their bedsin the morning, 5 for attending therapy sessions on time, 10 for doing theirApplication: Behavior Modifi cation and Self-Efficacy Therapy 361