Behavior Therapy And The Origins Of Third Generation Therapies.

To better understand the reason for the emergence of these new therapies, it is convenient to understand the first two waves of Behavior Therapy.

Since its beginnings, the so-called Behavior Therapy has been characterized by carrying out a monistic, direct, objective and rational approach to the study of human behavior and is framed within what is known as Experimental and Applied Behavior Analysis (AEAP). The AEAP is the result of the set of data obtained empirically through research at a basic level (experimental analysis) and applied (applied analysis) under the philosophy of Eskinnearian Radical Behaviorism. (Mañas, I 2007).

THE FIRST WAVE

The applied results from the behavioral tradition, whose main exponent was Applied Behavior Analysis, formed the so-called “First Wave” of Behavioral Therapies. The main purpose and interest of this first wave or movement was to overcome the limitations of the psychoanalytic model prevailing at that time and offer an alternative, which would be a clinical approach whose theory and practice were based on principles and laws of behavior obtained through scientific methodology. Therefore, instead of appealing to hypothetical or intrapsychic variables or constructs such as unconscious conflicts or the Oedipus complex as causes of psychological problems, other variables were identified, such as reinforcement contingencies or discriminative control of certain stimuli on behavior. Emerging behavior therapy focused directly on the problem or clinical behavior directly, that is, based on the principles of conditioning and learning, leaving aside techniques such as hypnosis or introspection.

This new clinical procedure based on the direct management of contingencies with clearly defined clinical objectives such as observable behavior has been called “first-order” changes. Among the main contributions of this stage we can highlight Eysenck and his efforts to empirically validate therapies, although later techniques such as self-report were strongly criticized, Mary Cover Jones and her review of the learning principles proposed by Watson for the treatment of childhood phobias, to Wolpe and his systematic desensitization technique or Teodoro Ayllon and Nathan Azrin and their token economy technique created in 1968.

Despite the progress that this first wave of behavior therapy neither the associationist learning model or stimulus-response paradigm (Watsonian initial behaviorism) nor the experimental analysis of behavior (Skinnerian radical behaviorism) were effective in the treatment of certain psychological problems presented by adults.

These difficulties, together with the fact that none of these approaches offered an adequate empirical analysis of language and human cognition, represented, as in the previous case, a turning point whose expression, once again, was developed through a second movement or wave: the so-called “Second Wave” of behavioral therapies or “Second Generation Therapies”.

What was characteristic on this occasion of this second wave of therapies, which emerged last century, was the fact of considering thought or cognition as the main cause of behavior and, therefore, as the cause and explanation of psychological phenomena and disorders.

Although this new wave of therapies, which can be grouped under the vast threshold of the so-called Cognitive-Behavioral Therapies maintained (and still do) the techniques focused on change due to contingencies or first-order (generated by the first wave of therapies), the variables of interest par excellence were transferred to the cognitive events, considering them, now, as the cause direct behavior and, therefore, transforming thinking into the main objective of intervention.

As a consequence, both the analysis variable as well as the objectives pursued and many of the techniques focused primarily on the modification, elimination, reduction or alteration, in any of its forms, of private events. (Mañas I, 2007).

In summary, the general assumption or premise that was established during this period can be summarized as follows: If the cause of the behavior is the thought (or emotion, mental schema, belief, etc.), the thought must be changed ( or the emotion, the schema, the belief or whatever) to change the behavior. This fundamental assumption or premise is shared by most people in our culture, that is, the underlying logic of second generation therapies is widely held and what most people believe. (When you stop thinking like that you will do better, get rid of that thing in your head that doesn’t do you any good, if you think you are shit nothing is going to work out for you..). This approach or philosophy adapts perfectly to what is socially established as correct or what has to be done given certain circumstances; and, above all, with the ways of speaking and explaining that people have in our society, with the medical or psychiatric model and, therefore, with the idea of ​​”mental illness.”

Another consequence that derives from the previous approach or philosophy is consider that everything that generates discomfort or causes pain must be quickly eradicated through all available means; especially, emphasizing the use of control strategies or techniques (such as elimination, suppression, avoidance, substitution, etc.) of private events.

Within the wide range of second generation therapies are the most standardized and currently used, such as Beck’s Cognitive Therapy for Depression (Beck, Rush, Shaw and Emery, 1979), Ellis’s Rational Emotive Therapy (Ellis and MacLaren , 1998), Meinchenbaum’s Self-Instruction Therapy (Meinchenbaum, 1977), as well as a multitude of programmed or standardized treatment packages covered, most of them, under the umbrella of cognitive behavioral therapies. Although these therapies have been effective in the treatment of multiple psychological problems, the truth is that many problems still remain unresolved. Some of these problems revolve around what is really effective within the set of techniques used by second generation therapies.

This is easily seen if we take into account that These therapies continue to use the techniques and procedures generated by the first generation therapies (first-order changes), making it difficult to contrast the real and effective value that those innovative elements or components that they use could have independently. Furthermore, the effectiveness of these therapies has been related more to the behavioral components than to the cognitive components themselves. Such is the case of Albert Ellis’s Rational Emotive Therapy (RET), which evolved into Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT) after verifying the isolated effectiveness of said behavioral components (Ellis, 1994).

Another of the limitations The most important aspects of second-generation therapies are the experimental data currently available that indicate precisely that attempts to control, reduce or eliminate private events (precisely explicit intervention objectives from these therapies) paradoxically produce, and in many cases, contrary effects or rebound effects. Among these effects, notable increases have been described in both the intensity, frequency, as well as the duration, and even the accessibility of unwanted private events (eg, Cioffi and Holloway, 1993; Gross and Levenson, 1993, 1997; Gutiérrez, Luciano, Rodríguez and Fink, 2004; Sullivan, Rouse, Bishop and Johnston, 1997; Wegner and Erber, 1992). These data represent a clear challenge to the very principles and assumptions on which second generation therapies are based, attacking and violating their own foundations or basic philosophy.

In summary, Hayes (2004a, b) has highlighted some of the main reasons that have led to the emergence (once again) of a new wave of behavioral therapies: The so-called “Third Wave of Behavioral Therapies” or “Third Generation Therapies”. Among them it is worth highlighting the following:

• Lack of knowledge about why cognitive therapy works or fails.
• The existence of radically functional conceptions of human behavior.
• The accelerated curve of basic research in language and cognition from a functional perspective. This represented an opportunity to group ways of doing things, many of them taken from “non-scientific” therapies, and to develop new methods.

But To understand in a deeper way the origins, the most important attempts and milestones that have shaped the entire development and establishment of behavior therapy until today, a somewhat more extensive historical review must be made to make everything previously stated more understandable.

This article is merely informative, at PsychologyFor we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

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