Behavior Therapy

Behavior therapy focuses on what you do. This is an excellent treatment choice for recurrent behavior problems such as anxiety disorders, drug, alcohol, eating disorders and other substance abuse disorders, phobias, and obsessive-compulsive disorders.

Behavior therapy focuses on changing destructive, self-defeating actions. Behaviors can change for the better through positive reinforcement of desired deeds and by ignoring the negative ones.  Positive reinforcement techniques are often an integral part of effective parenting programs. 

Some other common types of behavior therapy techniques include:

Systematic Desensitization– Facing anxiety producing situations head on, but in gradual steps, can help a person become desensitized to the worry (or fear).  It includes: Relaxation - Deep breathing and muscle tensing and relaxing, guided imagery to pleasant, peaceful mental places, and biofeedback training.  Creation of a Hierarchy - guided generation of a series of situations where the fear (anxiety) happens more and more   intensely.  Desensitization-  the relaxation techniques are used to get the person to progress further up the hierarchy until the worry is reduced.

Exposure Therapy- Uses the same method as systematic desensitization except without the relaxation techniques.  Flooding– here a person is   exposed to the most anxiety-causing event at once. With this technique the patient confronts the feared situation directly.

Some therapist combine behavioral techniques with cognitive therapy techniques, such as thought restructuring. These two theories work very well together especially when treating depression and anxiety disorders.