Behavioural therapy
This is another type of talking therapy. It tries to focus on how people behave and what makes them behave in this way.
Many social care workers will be aware of the ABC model of supporting people with challenging behaviour. This tries to find out what 'triggers' the behaviour, what the behaviour was itself and what were the consequences of the behaviour.
The behavioural approach assumes that behaviour is learned as a result of positive or negative reinforcements.
Positive reinforcement is an event that is rewarding, and can be any event that the individual finds pleasurable.
With this model, an individual's behaviour is understood by a functional analysis which considers:
a) the roles of the antecedents or setting events;
b) a description of the behaviour
c) the consequences of the behaviour
Over the last 40 years, the behavioural approach has developed from being mainly a behaviour modification approach (where the goal was to remove or alter behaviours) to being a more sensitive and constructive approach.
The main difference between behavioural therapies and psychodynamic therapies is that only observable behaviour is objectively analysed. The individual’s thoughts, ideas and feelings are not taken into account.