Behavior therapy or behavioral therapy is an action-based therapy that fosters positive behavior change. Behavior therapies focus mainly on individuals’ existing behavior. Unlike the psychodynamic and experiential therapies, which look at clients’ early life events as a central source of present disturbances. Behavior therapists therefore believe that changing a person’s behavior will allow them to function more effectively and solves the problem with no need for concern about an underlying origin. The principles of reinforcement that good behavior is reinforced through positive reinforcement and unwanted behavior can be removed by punishment are the goals of behavioral treatment approaches.
Behavioral treatment approaches make a basic assumption that both normal behavior and abnormal behaviors are learned. Therefore, behaviorists believe that people who display abnormal behavior have either failed to learn the appropriate skills that are essential to cope with everyday problems or they have acquired faulty skills that are maintained through reinforcement. Therefore, to modify abnormal behavior, the behavioral approaches suggest that an individual must learn new behavior to replace the faulty skills that they have developed and unlearn the maladaptive behavior patterns. Behavior therapies are based on the
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Individuals who practice behavior therapies are referred to as behaviorists and they tend to analyse certain learned behaviors and the impact of the environment on that particular behavior. The two key principles of behavior therapy are classical conditioning and operant conditioning, each of which has many techniques that are used to bring about behavior change. Behavioral therapy develops, improves and provides behavioral intervention programs that help people live and adapt successfully to their