Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy

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Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy

Throughout the duration of the course, we have witnessed multiple types of therapy and evaluated the characteristics that make that particular therapy effective, under what conditions and most importantly whether the treatment would benefit the client's specific scenario. In efforts to have a basic understanding of what therapy would suit a client best, the key concepts, human nature, and processes behind techniques and procedures were studied. Some of the theories discussed were the psychoanalytic therapy, Adlerian therapy, existential therapy, person-centered therapy and the focus of this paper rational emotive behavior therapy.

Behavior therapy is centered in assisting individuals reach an understanding …show more content…

In his approached he argued that the perception of how humans experience circumstances are the main contributors to emotional disturbance. Often, psychologists like to identify and assess behavior utilizing the A-B-C Model of behavior, where A stands for Antecedent (s) or the causation of disturbed or dysfunctional emotion, B for Behavior (s) and C for Consequence (s). The model says that often individuals do not assume dysfunctional and disruptive behaviors due to A (antecedents) but heavily due to their perception of …show more content…

There are a wide variety of techniques that can be used by behavioral therapists to treat varying conditions. For example, someone experiencing a phobia to birds might be subjected to systematic desensitization to effectively reduce the anxiety that accompanies being exposed to birds. This method arises from classical conditioning, first introduced by Ivan Pavlov and then developed as a treatment by Joseph Wolpe who used counterconditioning as a means to treat anxiety. Wolpe discovered that by pairing the stimuli to anxiety with a relaxation response, it was possible to reduce to inhibit the initial response to the stimuli. In the case of the bird phobia, the client would be taught breathing and relaxation exercises and then asked to create a fear hierarchy. The goal of the therapy is to have the client able to tackle the hierarchy while utilizing the relaxation techniques, going from one stage to another. The therapy can be done in two ways, through In Vivo desensitization, which allows for brief and gradual exposure to the feared stimuli or flooding which is a prolonged and intensive in vivo or imaginal exposure to the stimuli. It has been proven that in vivo techniques are more

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