Mental health is crucial to your well-being, regardless of age, gender, race, and nationality. It can affect one’s physical health, productivity, and overall happiness. Being mentally sound can also impact your relationships with others. Unfortunately, factors like distressing events and other medical conditions can hinder someone from feeling well mentally.
While medications, support groups, and lifestyle changes can help manage the symptoms of mental health disorders, they may be ineffective for other patients. For this reason, you could consider behavioural therapy sessions.
If you want professional help for your mental illness, this article will describe behavioural therapy, the conditions it can address, and the common types of this treatment method.
What Is Behavioural Therapy?
Behavioural therapy is a mental health treatment that focuses on the connection between emotions, thoughts, and behaviour. It aims to help people change their behaviours to improve their mental health. That way, it applies the principles of operant and classical conditions to help clients transform their habits, manage symptoms, and feel empowered to change their behaviours.
What Health Conditions Does It Treat?
Mental health professionals usually use behavioural therapy to treat undesired behaviours, phobias, self-harm habits, paranoia, panic disorders, anxiety disorders, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, and substance use disorders. They can also use it to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
An Essential Note to Remember
If you believe seeing a therapist could help with your emotional issues, contact one and schedule an appointment to discuss what kind of help you need. Many different types of therapy are available, and your mental healthcare professional might suggest something else if they don’t think behavioural therapy is your best option.
What Are the Common Types of Behavioural Therapy?
Educating yourself on the different treatments can help you make more informed decisions. After discussing behavioural therapy, the conditions it can treat, and a critical note to remember, this section will enumerate the five standard treatment methods your mental healthcare professional can recommend.
1. Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy
Cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) is a treatment method that helps people identify and change their thoughts and beliefs to manage their emotions and behaviours better. It usually involves professionals using mindfulness techniques, worksheets, tracking diaries, and journals to monitor their client’s progress.
2. Behavioural Activation Therapy
Behavioural activation (BA) therapy encourages clients to participate in activities that bring enjoyment and gratification, increasing positive feedback from the environment and changing behaviours for better results. It looks at areas where people need assistance and provides activities to help them manage their struggles.
It also works on eradicating any resistance to their problems, letting them confront their issues and learn more successful ways to address them.
3. Cognitive-Behavioural Play Therapy
Cognitive-behavioural play therapy is an approach therapists use with children to know how they perceive their environment and relationships and themselves. They may observe the child’s play and play with them to better understand their interpersonal relationships. That way, the child’s parents can understand the themes arising in sessions and how to address them at home.
4. Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy
Exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy is a cognitive-behavioural treatment that lets individuals face their fears. Experts prove that this type of therapy can successfully reduce symptoms associated with anxiety, OCD, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
5. Systematic Desensitization
Systematic desensitization is a form of behavioural therapy based on classical conditioning principles. Experts use it to remove a client’s fear response to a phobia by teaching them deep muscle relaxation techniques, breathing exercises, and creating a hierarchy. Clients then work up the scale, desensitizing themselves to the most fear-provoking stimulus.
Conclusion
Everybody deserves to feel mentally at peace. You can get the needed help for your mental illness by consulting a therapist and determining if behavioural therapy suits your situation.
If you or your child needs professional behavioural therapy in Langley for their mental health condition, visit Crossroads Collective! We’re committed to offering quality mental health treatments to ensure our client’s well-being. Book an appointment now!
