The type of counterconditioning most widely used for therapeutic purposes is systematic desensitization, which is employed to reduce or eliminate fear of a particular object, situation, or activity. An early example of systematic desensitization was an experiment that is also the first recorded use of behavior therapy with a child. In a paper published in 1924, Mary Cover Jones, a student of the p…
Covert sensitization was first described in the mid-1960s by psychologist Joseph Cautela as a new treatment for people who engage in undesirable behaviors. In the past 30 years it has been researched as a treatment for alcoholism, smoking, obesity, and various sexual deviations including pedophilia and exhibitionism. Covert sensitization discourages people from engaging in unwanted behaviors by cr…
The term crisis intervention can refer to several different therapeutic approaches, which are applied in a variety of situations. The common denominator among these interventions, however, is their brief duration and their focus on improving acute psychological disturbances rather than curing long-standing mental disorders. Some common examples of crisis intervention include suicide prevention tel…
Developed by Joseph Wolpe in the 1950s, desensitization is a treatment method which weakens the learned association between anxiety and feared objects or situations by strengthening another response—in this case, relaxation—that is incompatible with anxiety. Relaxation responses are strengthened through progressive relaxation training, first developed by Edmund Jacobson in the 1930s.…
Music has been used throughout human history to express and affect human emotion. The health benefits of music to patients in Veterans Administration hospitals following World War II became apparent, leading to its use as a complementary healing practice. Musicians were hired to work in hospitals. Degrees in music therapy became available in the late 1940s, and in 1950, the first professional asso…
Because research has shown that many psychiatric illnesses are biological in origin, drug therapy is often the prescribed treatment. Drug therapy is used to treat a variety of psychological disorders, including attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), major depression, schizophrenia, Tourette's syndrome, anxiety disorders, autism, panic attacks, and obsessive-compulsive disorder, am…
Electrical stimulation of the brain (ESB) is useful in a variety of situations, including neurosurgical operations and experimental research. In neurosurgery, this procedure may be used to assist physicians in determining which brain tissue should be removed. Because the patient must remain awake during the procedure, only a local anesthetic is administered. Focal epilepsy has been surgically trea…
Electroconvulsive therapy, also known as ECT and electroshock therapy, was developed in the 1930s when various observations led physicians to conclude that epileptic seizures might prevent or relieve the symptoms of schizophrenia. After experiments with insulin and other potentially seizure-inducing drugs, Italian physicians pioneered the use of an electric current to create seizures in schizophre…
Family therapy is generally initiated because of psychological or emotional problems experienced by a single family member, often a child or adolescent. These problems are treated as symptomatic of dysfunction within the family system as a whole. The therapist focuses on the interaction between family members, analyzing the role played by each member in maintaining the system. Family therapy can b…
Primal therapy was pioneered by Dr. Arthur Janov in the late 1960s. Janov describes it as a "natural therapy" based on his hypothesis that most psychological disturbances are disorders of feeling which can be traced back to the traumas of conception and childbirth. The theoretical basis for the therapy is the supposition that prenatal experiences and birth trauma form people's…
Rational-emotive behavior therapy (REBT) belongs to a class of therapies termed "cognitive-behavioral" therapies. The defining features of these therapies are an emphasis on achieving measurable goals by manipulating internal and external reinforcers. That is, cognitive-behavioral therapists help clients identify the thoughts and beliefs that might be prolonging their distress or anx…
Reality therapy was developed by William Glasser, who wrote a book of the same name in the 1960s. This type of counseling suggests that all psychiatric subjects have the same basic underlying problem, namely an inability to fulfill their essential needs. Specific problems, like alcoholism or misbehavior in school, are the symptoms and not the problem. Troublesome symptoms occur when a person canno…
Group therapy has numerous advantages over individual therapy. The therapist's knowledge about the clients offers an added dimension through the opportunity of observing them interact with each other. Clients are helped by listening to others discuss their problems (including problems more severe than theirs) and by realizing that they are not alone. They also gain hope by watching the prog…
Art therapy, sometimes called expressive art or art psychology, encourages self-discovery and emotional growth. It is a two-part process, involving both the creation of art and the discovery of its meaning. Rooted in Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung's theories of the subconscious and unconscious, art therapy is based on the premise that visual symbols and images are the most accessible and natur…
A major concept in the study of attribution theory is locus of control: whether one interprets events as being caused by one's own behavior or by outside circumstances. A person with an internal locus of control, an "internal," for example, will believe that her performance on a work project is governed by her ability or by how hard she works. An "external" will …
Since the advent of managed health care and the cost-controls that have accompanied it, self-help groups have grown in popularity. Individuals who are offered limited mental health coverage through their healthcare plan often find self-help a positive and economical way to gain emotional support. Twelve-step groups, one of the most popular types of self-help organizations, have been active in the …
Sensitivity training began in the 1940s and 1950s with experimental studies of groups carried out by psychologist Kurt Lewin at the National Training Laboratories in Maine. Although the groups (called training or T-groups) were originally intended only to provide research data, their members requested a more active role in the project. The researchers agreed, and T-group experiments also became le…
In aversive conditioning, the client is exposed to an unpleasant stimulus while engaging in the targeted behavior, the goal being to create an aversion to it. In adults, aversive conditioning is often used to combat addictions such as smoking or alcoholism. One common method is the administration of a nausea-producing drug while the client is smoking or drinking so that unpleasant associations are…
Sex therapy, the treatment of sexual disorders, has evolved from early studies on sexual behavior made over 50 years ago. During these 50 years, the approach to sex therapy has changed immensely. When William Masters and Virginia Johnson published Human Sexual Inadequacy in 1970, the sexual revolution, born in the 1960s, was not yet in full force. Due in part to the development of the oral contrac…
Shaping, or behavior-shaping, is a variant of operant conditioning. Instead of waiting for a subject to exhibit a desired behavior, any behavior leading to the target behavior is rewarded. For example, B. F. Skinner (1904-1990) discovered that, in order to train a rat to push a lever, any movement in the direction of the lever had to be rewarded, until finally, the rat was trained to push a lever.…
In contrast to the psychoanalytic method of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), which focuses on unconscious mental processes and their roots in the past, behavior therapy focuses on observable behavior and its modification in the present. Behavior therapy was developed during the 1950s by researchers and therapists critical of the psychodynamic treatment methods that prevailed at the time. It drew on a va…
Formerly referred to as speech therapy, the techniques, strategies, and interventions designed to improve or correct communication disorders are known as speech-language pathology. Both speech disorders, which involve difficulty in producing the sounds of language, and language disorders, which involve difficulty in understanding language or using words in spoken communication, are treated by spee…
Cognitive therapy is an approach to psychotherapy that uses thought patterns to change moods and behaviors. Pioneers in the development of cognitive behavior therapy include Albert Ellis (1929-), who developed rational-emotive therapy (RET) in the 1950s, and Aaron Beck (1921-), whose cognitive therapy has been widely used for depression and anxiety. Cognitive behavior therapy has become increasing…
There are many different approaches to marriage counseling, which may be used alone or combined with other methods by the therapist. Among the oldest is the psychodynamic approach, which attributes problems within a marriage to the unresolved conflicts and needs of each spouse. Each client's personal history and underlying motivations are central to this mode of therapy. Therapists using th…
