Happiness Isn’t Brain Surgery:
Behavior Modification Basics/Part 3
Presented by: Dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes
Executive Director, AllCEUs
Host: Counselor Toolbox
Continuing Education (CE) credits for addiction and mental health counselors, social workers and marriage and family therapists can be earned for this presentation at
https://allceus.com/member/cart/index/product/id/575/c/
Objectives
– Continue to explore the usefulness of behavior modification
– Review basic behavior modification terms:
– Unconditioned stimulus and response
– Conditioned stimulus and response
– Discriminitive stimuli
– Learned helplessness
– Reinforcement
– Punishment
– Extinction Burst
– Premack Principle
New Term
– Shaping
– Rewarding the successive approximations of the target behavior
– Punishing or ignoring non-target behaviors
– Ignore if negative attention is better than no attention
– Solidify gains
– Withhold reward for a higher level of target behavior
– Goal: Brewster meet me at the door quietly and sitting
– Target behavior 1: Not jumping
– Target behavior 2: Sitting on command
– Target behavior 3: Sitting when I walk in without command
Apply It
– Shaping
– Cutting Behavior
– Target Behavior #1: Ice cube or ink pen
– Target behavior #2: Alternate self-soothing behavior
– Stress Eating
– Target behavior #1 Fruit on a plate + mindfulness exercise (premack)
– Target behavior #2 Drink + mindfulness exercise
– Target behavior #3 Mindfulness exercise
New Term
– Chaining
– A cascade effect leading to a behavior
– Behaviors, stimuli, reinforcements and punishments that lead up to a positive or negative result
New Term
– Chaining
– Mouse
– Mouse is put into a maze
– Mouse smells cheese (behavior + Rewarding Consequence)
– Mouse seeks out cheese
– Mouse turns left and there is a wall (behavior + punishment)
– Mouse tries to climb over wall and fails (behavior + punishment)
– Mouse turns right and there is a corridor and the cheese smell gets stronger (behavior + reward)
– Mouse happens upon another crossroad —choice?
– Process repeats until mouse gets cheese (Big Reward)
Apply It
– Example 1: Car problems
– Get up on time (Monday morning)
– Get ready for work
– Eat breakfast
– Start driving to work and the car breaks down
– “Get Irritated”
– Call for assistance
– Example 1a: Car problems (over reaction)
– Get up late(Monday morning)
– Get ready for work
– Eat breakfast and spill coffee on your shirt
– Start driving to work and the car breaks down
– “Get Angry”
– Cannot think straight
Apply It
– Example 2: Stress Eating
– Bad day at work
– Come home
– Start eating
– Feel better
– Example 2a: Not Stress Eating
– Good day at work
– Come home
– Change clothes
– Feel better
Apply It
– Example 3: Panic Attack
– Didn’t sleep well
– Get up
– Drink 2 cups of coffee
– Get stuck in traffic driving to work
– Panic attack
– Example 3a: No Panic Attack
– Didn’t sleep well
– Get up
– Drink 2 cups of DECAF coffee
– Get stuck in traffic driving to work
– No panic attack
Summary/In Practice
– When a client is trying to change a behavior
– Analyze exceptions (chaining—what was different when you did not …)
– Behavior chains can help identify antecedents/triggers and vulnerabilities
– Remember that every behavior is maintained by rewards (getting up, going to work, eating)
– Eliminating a behavior means
– Making that behavior LESS rewarding than the alternative
– Making the new behavior MORE rewarding than the alternative
Summary/In Practice
– Decisional balance exercises help people understand what rewards are maintaining their behavior.
– Shaping can help make new behaviors more rewarding.