1. Behavior Therapy: Counter Conditioning & Inhibitory Conditioning
Lecture 17

2. The Process of Behavior Therapy
Clarifying the clients problem
Formulating initial goals for therapy
Designing a target behavior
Identifying the maintaining conditions
Designing a treatment plan
Implementing the treatment plan
Evaluating the success of treatment
Conducting follow-up assessment ~

3. Acceleration Target Behaviors
Increase behavioral deficits
inattention, hygeine, lack of assertiveness, etc.
Primarily positive reinforcement
Relatively simple & straight forward
Example: Social interaction in depressed client
Reward interactions with people ~

4. Deceleration Target Behaviors
Decrease behavioral excessesses
Biting fingernails, staying up too late, criticizing others, etc.
Simple solutions usually incomplete
Punishment   behavior
Leaves void
Behavior occuring fo a reason ~

5. Deceleration Target Behaviors
Use competing responses
Deceleration for undesirable/maladaptive behavior
Acceleration of desirable/adaptive behavior
Provide way to obtain goal
Example:
Decelerate criticizing
Accelerate praising ~

6. The Dead Person Rule
“Never ask someone to do something a dead person can do”
Don’t ask them not to behave
Deceleration only
Client is asked to do something active
Include acceleration behavior
Fills behavioral void ~

7. Deceleration Techniques
Differential RFT (DRO & DRI)
Direct Deceleration Therapy
Consequential deceleration
Aversion therapy
Token Economies
Pos RFT & response cost
Exposure therapies
Brief / graduated
Prolonged / intense ~

8. Counter Conditioning Joseph Wolpe (1944) Reciprocal inhibition
Buzzer sounded when cat was eating
Buzzer (CS)  eating
Buzzer sounded when shocked
Buzzer  fear
Substitution of competing responses
Worked both ways
Can also replace fear ~

9. Counter Conditioning Pavlovian Conditioning CERs
Substitution of response
Competing or incompatible
Similar to DRO/DRI (operant)
Example: young woman’s anxiety about attending banquet
Ex-boyfriend & new girlfriend
Imagine banquet with absurd scenes ~
Ventis (1973) – imagined ex at banquet in leotards, etc.
Reported only I episode of mild apprehension

10. Mary Cover Jones & “Peter”
Treatment of phobias
Peter fearful of white rabbit
Counterconditioning
Pairing favorite food & rabbit
Exposure therapy
Gradually moved rabbit closer
Peter watched another child play with rabbit ~

11. Inhibitory Conditioning

12. Learning Regulates Behavior
Controls organism’s interactions with environment
Requires 2 opposing processes
e.g., positive & negative feedback
excitatory & inhibitory conditioning
Excitatory learning
CR will likely occur
CS+ signals occurrence of US ~

13. Inhibitory learning Conditioned Inhibition
Learning to withhold conditional response
CS-: US will not occur
no US for period of time
US must be a significant event
Occurs only if there is an excitatory context ~

14. Standard Procedure Some trials: CS+ --- US
Other trials: CS+ / CS No US
Example: traffic light
CS+ (red)  CR?
CS- (police officer) / CS+  CR?
Respond differently under different circumstances ~

15. Negative CS-US Contingency
Similar to standard procedure
Some trials: CS+ & US
Other trials: CS- & no US
CS-  no response
Example: Traffic light
Red (CS+) – Danger (US)
Green (CS-) – no Danger (no US) ~

16. Inhibitory Conditioning & Stress
Panic attacks  extreme stress
Carter, Hollon, Carson, & Shelton (1995)
triggered by CS+ for aversive stimuli
Panic attack experimentally induced
accompanied by trusted friend
or alone ~

17. Inhibitory Conditioning & Stress
Friend acted as CS- for stress
 stress compared the alone group
trusted friend was a safety signal ~