7 Critical Skills to Learn from Behavioral therapy

What is Behavioral Therapy?

Behavioral therapy is a vast subject that describes various forms of solutions to a human mental health issue. It uses different behavioral techniques to understand the environmental impact on individual behaviors. In finding a solution to attitudinal problems, behaviorists believe that every behavior is learned and can be unlearned.

As part of the behavioral methodology, a behavioral school believes that human behavior cannot be hidden, meaning that as new behavior is learned it is also exhibited. While an in-depth knowledge of behaviorism has immense benefits for the individuals, especially people in an inpatient treatment center, it is essential to cultivate specific skills, critical to learning from behavior therapy.

Behavioral therapy succe

While a therapist would make necessary efforts to see a patient change, they cannot force a change unless the patient understands and plays their roles in the change process. To help you regain normal behavior and be successful in your desire to get help from a therapist, you need to learn the following behavioral therapy skills considered critical to your success.

1.       Journaling skill. This skill is a supportive yet straightforward way of helping the individual express their feelings and track their thoughts and progress. It involves creating detailed records of thoughts that will guide you towards change. Journaling consists of writing about a stream of consciousness; to write out whatever you are feeling – good or not so good feelings. This behavioral therapy skill is vital for anyone to become sober and overcome their behavioral challenges.

2.       Cognitive restructuring. Your perception about a life situation can affect your behavior, and unless you understand the core reason behind it and what exactly you need to achieve, you may feel trapped in that perception. Take for instance when you believe good health is only possible if you exercise, and suddenly you are in a situation where you can no longer exercise. Unless you change this perception, you might find your health deteriorating because of your belief that only exercise can give you good health. What you need to look at is what does exercise bring and find another source to get that instead of holding on your perception of good health and exercise.

3.       Mindfulness skill. Addressing behavioral change need the patient to be mindful of their behaviors as a precursor to having a hold on the change process. This behavioral skill will give individuals the ability to make better choices and be more focused on things that are important for their wellbeing. Practicing mindfulness helps to reduce avoidance coping, and it helps you with the ability to make better choices even if you’re feeling anxious. It helps the individual with the skill to ruminate less.

4.       Critical evaluation of events. This is an applied behavioral analysis skill that follows scientific discipline with applying techniques according to the principles of learning to modify behaviors of social importance. The ability to evaluate events and make decision help the behaviorists make sound life-changing decisions. When a patient understands critical thinking and evaluation and applies it to everyday decision making, their life will improve considerably. This skill when cultivated helps the individual to build problem-solving/analysis skill, strategic thinking ability, and develop technical capacity to be thorough in considering behavioral change issues.

5.       Self-love. Behaviorists have the skill to examine their imperfections and mistakes. Without rumination, talk to oneself with kindness and seek the right way to make a deserving and appropriate change. Most people with behavioral challenges indulge more on self-loathing which makes their case worse. Behavioral research proves that talking to oneself with kindness helps to achieve significant improvement because it builds self-motivation.

6.       Self-improvement. What you don’t know, you don’t know, and it’s your responsibility to learn and understand it. Everyone with behavioral challenge should endeavor to build self-improvement ability to develop the capacity to improve in relevant areas of their life. The behavioral therapist understands the importance of self-improvement that they put in place conscious gradual steps to improve individual skills. Journaling, for instance, is an essential skill to come out of a bad habit and building such ability toward achieving behavioral change is part of self-improvement the individual must learn.

7.       Genuine interest in others. Technically speaking, the job of a therapist can only succeed with this skill. The therapists go through troubles to help their patients to get well. Even though they often encounter resistance from the people they seek to improve; they never give up. The reason for this is the genuine interest they have developed in the success of their patients. Anyone desiring a change behaviorally needs to build this skill to genuinely have interest in the efforts of everyone who want them to succeed. It is the joy of a therapist to see their patients come around for good, where the patient has the interest of their therapist in mind; they can become coachable and follow necessary instruction without cutting corners.

Behavioral therapy and behavioral change process

Inpatient treatment centers apply different types of behavioral therapy to help patients overcome their behavioral issues. The combination of the treatment used involves a specialized approach to help their patients achieve a remarkable result. While the therapist can only use their professional skills divided across different skills, it is the patient’s responsibility to remain amenable to efforts being made to help them.

In this regards, it is often an added advantage for the patient to understand the behavioral change process to accelerate their response to behavioral therapy. Typically, this process can be seen in six different stages listed as Pre-contemplation, Contemplation, Preparation, Action, Maintenance, and Relapse.

Unless the individual seeking behavioral therapy understand the process and challenges of the change process and build relevant and critical behavior therapy skills, getting help may be difficult. You need these essential skills to go through each change process and the skill to cross over to the next without losing gained ground due to triggers that can threaten your success.

Next Steps for the patient

The effectiveness of behavior therapy is predicated upon the patient’s ability to cooperate be open to help. It is, therefore, the call of affected patient and the help they can get from their immediate environment that will determine the level of success they will achieve.

Author Information

Author Name- Yamini
Author Email- yamini@addictionaide.com
Author Bio- Yamini is a content strategist at Bright Bridge Info tech, Addiction Recovery Center and she enjoys learning about the Addiction Recovery field. She specializes in guest blogging, blog publishing, and social media. She is an avid reader and loves writing impeccable contents pertaining to Addiction Recovery. She holds a bachelor degree in commerce.