Marla's Controlled Response To Anxiety

Marla is a 24-year-old woman who from extreme fear of social situations with daily activities becoming increasingly difficult for her due to her avoidance of social situations. She is afraid that she will lose her job because of the difficulties she is experiencing socially. Marla has an extreme Fear of social situations which is the target behavior we are trying to correct. Respondent behavior is involved in the development of her anxiety problem when the bodily responses of anxiety produced by a particular controlled stimulus are respondent behaviors. The presence of a social situation is a controlled stimulus that elicits a Controlled response of Autonomic Nervous System arousal involving rapid heart rate and muscle tension (Miltenberger,
For example, Miltenberger explains in Jon’s case that hair-pulling, usually when he was inactive, the competing response was to fold his hands together and put them in his lap. His mother is instructed to say, “put your hands in your lap,” and physically put her Jon’s hands to his lap whenever she saw him pulling his hair. Soon after Jon began to put his hands in his lap as soon as his mother said, “hands in lap.” Eventually, he started to put his hands in his lap as soon as he began to pull his hair. Whenever he was sitting with his hands in his lap, his mother commended him. Both habit behaviors decreased with the competing response treatment, which was implemented with the parent’s assistance (Miltenberger, 2011). Differential reinforcement means that reinforcement is provided for behaviors when these behaviors occur at certain times and places, whereas reinforcement is not provided when the behaviors do not occur during other times and places (Porter, 2002). A basic part in understanding differential reinforcement and how we learn in most situations is the concept of discrimination which is a process for behaving one way in one situation and behaving in a completely different way in another situation and typically develops as a result of differential reinforcement (Porter, 2002). Reinforcement was provided only when certain behaviors
“Habit reversal procedures are treatments used to decrease the frequency of undesirable habit behaviors, competing response training is when the client learns to use the competing response contingent on the occurrence of the habit or in anticipation of the occurrence of them” (Kelly & Ph.D, 2014). Simplified habit reversal procedure consisting of awareness training, competing response training, and social support. Awareness training is used to bring greater attention to controlled stimulus and other behaviors so that the affected person can gain better self-control. Awareness training is usually carried out in a number of smaller steps. “Step 1: The person describes in detail each time they carry out the behavior while looking into a mirror. Step 2: The therapist will tell the person whenever he or she carries out the impulse. This is done repeatedly until the person notices every time they do their tic. Step 3: The