Behavioural Modification Therapy

Drug Rehab Institute does not condone the usage of Behavioural Modification Therapy.

Behavioural Modification Therapy uses empirically demonstrated behaviour change techniques to increase or decrease undesired comportments’ frequency, such as altering an individual’s actions and reactions to stimuli through positive and negative reinforcement of adaptive behaviour.

Approach of Behavioural Modification Therapy

Negative reinforcement involves ensuring a patient is unpleasantly informed that his behaviour is inappropriate. The goal is to have the patient modify his conduct to that which is considered appropriate. The severity of negative reinforcement can range from a mild reprimand to incarceration. For example, a person recovering from substance abuse may be unpleasantly reminded how his past behaviour caused heartache in the lives of those he loves. Those reminders encourage him to remain loyal to a treatment program designed to prevent him from regressing into substance abuse.

Concept of Behavioural Modification Therapy

Behavioural modification treatment involves redirecting reaction patterns toward socially expectable conduct. Behavioural modification methods can involve a single strategy or combine various methods to bring about the desired behaviour.

In recent years, the concept of punishment has had many critics. However, these criticisms tend not to apply to negative punishment and usually apply to the addition of some aversive events. The use of positive punishment by board-certified behaviour analysts is restricted to extreme circumstances when all other treatment forms have failed; when the behaviour to be modified is a danger to the person or others. Positive punishment is usually restricted to using a spray bottle filled with water as an aversive event in clinical settings. When misused, more aversive punishment can lead to affective and emotional disorders and the receiver of the punishment increasingly trying to avoid the punishment (i.e., “not get caught”).