Sigmund Freud, Wolpe And Albert Ellis's Cognitive Behavior Therapy?

Sigmund Freud was largely influential to various psychiatrists, who would initially pursue his psychoanalytic or psychodynamic approach. However, Freud would later be challenged by William Glasser in his development of Reality Therapy, Wolpe & Albert Ellis’s Behavior Therapy, Aaron Beck’s Cognitive Behavior Therapy, and Albert Ellis’s Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (McCarthy & Archer, 2013). The before mentioned individuals develop new approaches that were found more effective with the changing times and referred to as the thought-focused treatment.

Freud’s psychoanalytic therapy was usually shorter sessions and would assist clients in becoming aware of how their behavior is driven by unconscious drives and emotions (McCarthy & Archer,

Glasser believed that human beings were responsible for their behaviors and, therefore, must possess the ability to change vs. Freud’s view that behaviors were outside of human being’s control (McCarthy & Archer, 2013). Glasser also believed that behaviors were due to present perceptions in order to meet the before mentioned needs (McCarthy & Archer, 2013). On the other hand, Freud believed that behaviors were due to previous learning experiences or unconscious (McCarthy & Archer, 2013). Glasser did not believe in the inherent existence of mental illness, but rather a choice that human beings would make via a regressive stage or unbalanced life, which would bring out behaviors, not a mental illness (McCarthy & Archer, 2013). He was also against a person labeled as mentally ill or with a health illness being prescribed medications, as he believed that human beings were responsible and can control or moderate behaviors or bad habits (McCarthy & Archer, 2013). He also believed that a positive stage or balanced life, with good choices, exercise and meditation can chance a person’s outcome in order to meet their needs (McCarthy & Archer,

Behavior therapy was established by both Wolpe and Albert Ellis, who believed that people can be untaught or unlearn through reciprocal inhibition or counter conditioning, such as systematic desensitization to overcome various mental illness such as anxiety and OCD (McCarthy & Archer, 2013). Behavior therapy utilizes operant learning principles, such as shaping, which reinforces some ultimate desired behavior by starting with a similar behavior (McCarthy & Archer, 2013). Shaping can also be thought of as working in baby steps in order to achieve the desired outcome. For example, a person who is overweight and wants to lose weight, can start by changing a few unhealthy habits, rather than giving everything up at once, and slowly be working towards a more strict regimen in order to lose weight. Token economies is another operant learning principle, which tokens, referred to as secondary reinforcers are used as a form of reward and can be used to buy or trade (McCarthy & Archer, 2013). For instance, an employee that works hard to obtain a promotion, and not only obtains the promotion, but also a bonus in the form of a check that can be used to buy a much-needed massage, and expensive purse. The only thing that behavior therapy could not account for was what was going on