Strengths Of The Behavioural Model Essay

also stated “he could take any infant at random and make them into any specialist he wished” (Gross, 2010).

The behavioural model is based on the idea that behaviour is mainly influenced by what an individual experiences throughout their life rather than physical or psychological elements. abnormality is the development of behaviour patterns established through classical conditioning (learning through association), operant conditioning (learning occurs through reinforcement) or social learning (behaviours learnt by seeing others rewarded or punished). when planning treatment, the behavioural model only considers people’s actions, thoughts feelings and the mind are given no consideration (Cox and Cox, 2008).

A strength of this model is that it is based on empirical evidence. Another strength is that the successful application of operant and classical conditioning such

An example of this is in phobias where the patient is assisted using relaxation techniques to become comfortable around the object of their fear. A strength of this therapy is that results can be seen relatively quickly involving less effort from the patient compared to other forms of psychotherapies. Another is that there is scientific evidence proving effectiveness of this type of therapy for example in a study by Lang et al 1963 used systemic desensitisation with a Group of individuals with a phobia of snakes, their fear lessened dramatically and results were still effective 6 months after treatment ended. Limitations include that symptoms may only be supressed other symptoms could develop. It may also be less effective in evolutionary phobias these phobias date back to our earliest ancestors such as the fear of snakes dating back to when early humans had to survive in an environment where reptiles were dominant, or those developed through personal experience such as fear of heights or the dark (Cox and Cox,