Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

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Effective treatments in Behavioural therapy Cognitive Behavioural therapy is psychotherapy based on problem solving, it is known to be a highly effective mental health treatment method and has been proved to tackle anger issues, depression and anxiety disorders. As well as tackling mental health issues it has been made known to deal with medical conditions such as hypertension, chronic pain and fibromyalgia. Another type of highly effective psychotherapy is behavioural therapy which focuses on ways to help change and gain control over unwanted behaviours. This psychotherapy is based on classical conditioning which was developed by Ivan Pavlov and it is also based on the principles of operant conditioning developed by B.F Skinner. This treatment…show more content…
This treatment is used to treat many emotional problems particularly irrational fears (phobias). Systematic desensitisation is led by a therapist and a different and unique method is used in this treatment which is called a fear hierarchy; this consists of the therapist and the client working together to link in rank from lowest to highest of what they fear the least about their anxiety provoking event or stimuli to what situation they may fear the most. Then the therapist helps the client by teaching them relaxation techniques whilst put in the first stage of the stressful anxiety provoking stimuli of their hierarchy and then the client eventually learns to relax in that situation and they work through the hierarchy until the top which would be the most anxiety provoking situation of the hierarchy and if the clients anxiety levels are normal and they feel relaxed at this stage then that means that they are cured of their phobia and irrational fear. So the method of systematic desensitisation involves extinction by gradually exposing the anxiety provoking stimuli to the client until they can relax in that situation. The success of this treatment is shown in the study conducted by Kazdin and Wilcoxon 1976 which showed that the principles of extinction and exposure are the bases of systematic…show more content…
Furthermore, it is the most used and popular of all the behavioural therapies for this reason. In addition, the technique makes more sense as it would be easier for the therapist to relax the client through a fear hierarchy rather than the flooding technique which might make the phobias worse rather than curing it. Lastly, systematic desensitisation is more likely to extinct the irrational fears as it builds on the confidence of the client when confronting the anxiety provoking situation. Bibliography Clark, R. (2004). The Classical Origins of Pavlov's Conditioning. Integrative Physiological and Behavioral Science, 39(4), 279-294. Retrieved from E-Journals database. Davey, G et all. (2008) Complete Psychology. London: Hodder Education

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