AP Psychology Module 71

Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT)

A Confrontational cognitive therapy, developed by Albert Ellis, That vigorously challenges people's illogical, self-defeating attitudes and assumptions.

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

A popular integrative therapy hat combines cognitive therapy (changing self-defeating thinking) with behavioral therapy (changing behavior).

Aversive Conditioning

A type of counterconditioning that associates an unpleasant state (such as nausea) with an unwanted behavior (such as drinking alcohol)

Systemic Desensitization

A type of exposure therapy that associates a pleasant, relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety-triggering stimuli. Commonly used to treat phobias.

Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy

An anxiety treatment that progressively exposes people to electronic simulations of their greatest fears, such as airplane flying, spiders, or public speaking.

Token Economy

An operant conditioning procedure in which people earn a token of some sort for exhibiting a desired behavior and can later exchange the tokens for various privileges or treats.

Counterconditioning

Behavior therapy procedures that use classical conditioning to evoke new responses to stimuli that are triggering unwanted behaviors; include exposure therapies and aversive conditioning.

Exposure Therapies

Behavioral techniques, such as systemic desensitization and virtual reality exposure therapy, that treat anxieties by exposing people (in imagination or actual situations) to the things they fear and avoid.

Group Therapy

Therapy conducted with groups rather than individuals, permitting therapeutic benefits from group interaction.

Behavior Therapy

Therapy that applies learning principles to the elimination of unwanted behaviors.

Cognitive Therapy

Therapy that teaches people new, more adaptive ways of thinking; based on the assumption that thoughts intervene between events and our emotional reactions.

Family Therapy

Therapy that treats the family as a system. Views an individual's unwanted behaviors as influenced by, or directed at, other family members.