[MUSIC PLAYING] - Instead of focusing on the origin of psychological problems, behavioral therapies use learning principles to modify maladaptive behaviors. The idea is that through careful shaping and use of reinforcement, a person can gradually learn complex behaviors. For example, some clients use a token economy, a system that uses tokens to increase desired behaviors in children. Social skills training is used to improve interpersonal skills through modeling or watching others perform desired behaviors; behavioral rehearsal, practicing behaviors during role playing; and shaping, gradual exposure to increasingly difficult social situations where individuals can apply what they have learned. 

Other therapists use systematic desensitization to treat phobias in adults, reducing the anxiety response through gradual exposure to feared situations. For example, if someone were afraid of snakes, the therapist might first ask them to imagine a snake was in the room then progress to showing them pictures of snakes and eventually building up to visiting a snake at the zoo. While this is happening, the therapist also trains the client in relaxation techniques, such as deep breathing, to help them uncouple the stimulus and the fear response. 

Behavioral therapies also make use of aversive conditioning, where an unwanted behavior is paired with an unpleasant stimulus as a means of discouraging the behavior. For example, clinicians might help someone overcome excessive drinking by having them take a medication that induces nausea whenever they drink. They will then learn to associate drinking alcohol with becoming ill and hopefully develop an aversion to drinking alcohol. 

Another form of behavioral therapy commonly used to treat obsessive compulsive disorder is Exposure and Response Prevention or ERP. S approach is used to decouple a distressing stimulus and associated compulsions. For example, a person who experiences intrusive thoughts about germs may spend hours each day scrubbing their counters. The scrubbing temporarily reduces the distress caused by thoughts of germs. But in the long term, it creates the belief that the person only stayed safe because they did that scrubbing ritual. 

ERP involves exposing a person to situations that create intrusive thoughts without allowing them to engage in the ritual that they use to reduce distress. Through this practice, they learn that the obsessive thoughts and distress will subside, even without the ritual. They also learn that skipping the ritual does not lead to any harm. 

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