Behavioural Intervention Procedures II: Cognitive—Behavioural, Self-Management Procedures and Combinations of Procedures

Abstract

Bandura’s social learning theory (see Chapter 2) has influenced the way the procedures discussed in the previous chapter are used. Bandura argues that they work for reasons that their originators did not recognise: they work because of what they do to people’s thinking. Thus, reinforcement, punishment, and desensitisation teach or remind people about what they can achieve and about the effects of their behaviour: according to Bandura, their value is informational. Using Bandura’s ideas, the worker will make a special point of attending to the client’s thinking throughout the behavioural programme. Bandura’s influence is important in relation to the cognitive-behavioural approaches described later in this chapter. We begin with a brief account of modelling, the procedure most closely associated with his name.