Behaviourists explain maladaptive behaviour in terms of the learning principles that sustain and maintain it. Discuss this statement and show how a behaviourists approach to therapy is in stark contrast to psychoanalytic one.
The term ‘therapy’ literary means, “curing, healing” and is defined as a treatment intended to relieve or heal a disorder. Historically, there has been considerable development in the range and types of therapy that can be used to help a client overcome their problems in a modern world. Some of these theories are very different whilst others share some similarities.
Edward Thorndike proposed the ‘Law of Effect’ whereby behavioural responses which were closely followed by pleasant consequences, would ensure that
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According to behaviourism, behaviour can be studied in a systematic and observable manner with no consideration of internal mental processes. As human beings we are driven to understand who we are and how the facets of our own personality make us unique individuals. Behaviourists believed that we are born with a handful of innate responses known as stimulus response and that all of our complex behaviours are through learning by interaction with the environment
As one of the oldest theories of personality, behaviourism dates back to Descartes, who introduced the idea of a stimulus and called the person a machine dependent on external events whose soul was the ghost in the machine. Although most theories operate to some degree on the assumption that humans have some sort of free will and are moral thinking entities, behaviourism does not accept that maladaptive characteristics are inherent in a person’s nature. “In the mind of the behaviourist, persons are nothing more than simple mediators between behaviour and the environment” (Skinner, 1993, p 428).
There are two major types of conditioning:
1. Classical conditioning is a technique used in behavioural training in which a naturally occurring stimulus is paired with a response. Next, a previously neutral stimulus is paired with the naturally occurring stimulus. Eventually, the previously neutral stimulus comes to evoke the response without the presence of the naturally occurring
The basic assumption of the behaviourist approach is that all behaviour is learned through experiences a person has in their environment. From this we know that behaviourists are on the side of nature in the “nature vs. nurture” debate. In comparison bio psychologists will be firmly on the side of nurture.
Classical conditioning occurs when two different stimulus are put together. For example, Pavlov’s experiment with dogs that when they see food they salivate but with a bell they wouldn’t, eventually when you paired food and the sound of the bell more times the dogs learned that when they heard the bell they would salivate.
The behaviourists are a school of psychology that believe that behaviour is learned. The behaviourists don’t believe that people have the innate desire to act in a certain way. They think we are born as a blank sheet that is then developed by life experiences. As we develop interactions and life lessons mould us into the person who we become. Behaviourists do not believe that behaviour has any contribution from biology. They dismiss that our biology is a decisive factor in who we are and believe that the idea is nonsense and therefore do not consider this.
The qualities of the behaviourist approach are that behaviourism depends on detectable practices, so it is less demanding to evaluate and gather information and data when directing examination. Since research and trial is an intense apparatus in giving clarifications and clear confirmations about a specific wonder, early scholars and defenders of behaviourism took pride in starting the investigations of noticeable practices instead of those that can't be watched and
Behaviorism believes that in order for an organism to possess mental states it only has to display the appropriate mental behaviors. As an example, all an organism needs to do in order to be ascribed a mind is to display the behaviors associated with a particular mental state. Putnam
Classical conditioning is a type of learning where the response to a meaningful stimulus can be associated with a neutral stimulus, causing the subject to respond similarly when exposed to the neutral stimulus.
Classical conditioning is a response that wouldn’t naturally come from a person and being paired with
Re-constructive Therapy : Client is helped to change the undesirable habits or modify his/her habits
Classical conditioning is a method used in behavioral studies. It is known as classical because it is the first study of laws of learning/conditioning, It is a learned reaction that you do when evoked by a stimulus.
The essence of the behaviourist approach is that all behaviour is learned. One assumption of the behaviourist approach is that behaviour can be explained in terms of classical conditioning. This is where
Behaviourism started as a type of research psychology and for a long time that was how it was seen. For the best part of the begging of the early 20th century, the behaviourists were just scientists that were working in high education institutes on psychological research problems. To the behaviourist, human behaviour has not got anything to do with the inner unconscious conflicts, restraining, or issues with object representation. To be a little more exact, a behavioural psychologist uses the concept of learning theory to explain human behaviour. According to behavioural theory, unhelpful or dysfunctional behaviour such as depression is it learned. Because depression is
Classical Conditioning is the repeated use of stimuli in combination with a repeated significant psychological event to train the one being conditioned to anticipate the event in response to the stimuli. The most basic example of this type of conditioning is train an animal to expect treats by making use of their sense of sound and blowing a whistle or ringing a bell just before you give them a treat each time. This will train the animal to associate the sound of the whistle or bell with the reception of the forthcoming treat, and it will begin to salivate in anticipation of getting the treat whenever it hears the sound.
Behaviorism was originally founded by John B. Watson who believed that behavior had the means to be measured, trained and changed (1913) The Behavioural theory is firstly based on experiment and secondly by describing how human behaviour is learnt through principles and rules. Maladaptive behaviour is when an individual is unable to adjust to situations; psychologists use this term to describe patterns of emotional disturbance. Both behavioural and psychoanalytic psychologists use this in
Classical conditioning is a form of learning whereby a conditioned stimulus becomes associated with an unrelated unconditioned stimulus to produce a behavioral response known as a conditioned response. Classical conditioning emphasizes the importance of grasping the environment. Classical conditioning helps to explain the behavior as complex behavior is divided into tiny stimulus.
The first disadvantage of behaviourism is that it completely ignores the characteristics of each individual. The human brain is complex and it