Behaviorism refers to a philosophy of psychology that seeks to determine how we learn to be what we are. The key word is team. If we can discover how we learned our patterns of behavior, we can discover how to unlearn them if we choose to do so. If we are trying to help someone who cannot help themselves (example, a small child) we look to their learning history to determine what may have produced their current behavior patterns. We may then design a program to change this learning environment to produce new or different behavior (example, we may suggest brief time out and hugs instead of ignoring and candy reward for a difficult two-year-old).

True or false:

• All behavior is learned.
• Obesity is in the genes.
• Some people are naturally depressed or anxious and cannot be helped.
• Identical twins have the same personalities because they have the same genes.
• Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are genetic diseases and cannot be helped with behavioral therapies.
• If we find brain abnormalities on PET scans in mentally ill patients, that means they have a biological illness.

Explanations:

• Some behavior, like walking, is primarily unlearned.
• We can inherit a predisposition to store fat more efficiently, and that can be an advantage in cold climates, but we do not inherit obesity.
• We show different temperaments at the time we are born. These temperaments can become patterns of anxious or depressed behavior, but do not have to.
• Ask any parent of identical twins about personalities, and they can describe many differences.
• Recent work with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder show that the combination of drugs and behavioral therapies results in the most success. Behavioral therapies with bipolar patients involve recognizing the cyclic nature of the illness and responding to early warning signs of - mania/depression.
• As brain imaging gets more precise, we will probably find brain differences corresponding to every thought we have. Example: the brains of obsessive- compulsive patients show alterations in the caudate. While drugs change the caudate back to its normal size, behavioral therapies also change the brain to its normal size.

Clients come to our Center wanting to change something about their emotions or behavior. My job is to help clients examine their history to find out how they came to be the way they are. Behavioral therapy programs are then designed in which clients practice new skills.

Many of my clients have brain injuries. Brain injury certainly is not learned, but it is acquired through trauma. To what degree can brain injured clients learn new skills, or adapt to their altered brains? Adaptation, too, involves learning. The behaviorist persistently asks the question: what can my client learn?

In answering that question, the therapist is forced to be creative and the client, sometimes to their surprise, finds out what they can, indeed, learn. When we learn we are empowered. And that is why I am a behaviorist.