Classical Conditioning

Pavlov carried out his famous experiment with dogs to come up with the concept of classic conditioning. This concept describes that usually a stimulus is able to produce a natural response. However, it is possible to produce the same response with conditioning and training. This principle can be used in humans to train them to stay away from the negatives while reinforcing positivity (Clark, 2004). Skinner worked on the concept of Watson, who described that personality is completely controlled by behavioural training and does not have to do anything with universal archetypes or natural needs of sexuality. Skinner in this sense, pointed out that our mind is much greater than a machine which can be conditioned. He described the concept of operant conditioning. He suggested that operants are our intentional actions that may result in specific behaviours. He explained the concept of reinforcing behaviours in order to strengthen their use, as well as weakening a particular

The researcher attempted to use conditioning in order to find out the underlying cause of the problem and treat it with some intervention methods. The patient returned information that poor encounters with spiders in childhood culminated in the development of a strong phobia. This meant that the patient was exposed to negative conditioning in early life, which needed to be treated. A reinforcement was required according to Skinner’s theory of operant conditioning (Kaplan, Heinrichs, & Carey, 2011). The researcher identified the need for producing exposure to spiders in order to decrease the sensitivity and trigger the neutral response in the patient. We created a series of exercises for treating arachnophobia. The first exercise involved looking at pictures of spiders. This desensitised the patient. The following practices and self-assessing exercises continued to reinforce this behaviour and significantly alter the perception of the patient towards