Behavioral medicine is a branch of behavioral therapy and originated from it. It explores health behavior in the field of all therapeutic interventions and develops knowledge about the related developments, techniques, treatments, diagnoses and rehabilitations through which the sufferer learns to cope with his disease.
What is behavioral medicine?
Behavioral medicine is a branch of behavioral therapy and originated from it. For example, it explores health behaviors in the area of all therapeutic interventions. Behavioral therapy measures are based on the knowledge that disturbed behavior can be learned, but also unlearned. This field of research began with learning theory, which established hypotheses and models to describe the complexity of learning processes on a psychological basis and to interpret them using a wide variety of theories. The founder was the American psychologist John B. Watson with his school of behaviorism. This led to the development of behavioral medical concepts that were based on biomedical principles and approached the development of disease specifically through methods based on learning theory. Initially, the view was held that internal processes could not be understood by an outsider and therefore should not be analyzed. Depth psychology was soon opposed by behavioral therapy, which did not presuppose the first person of the ego, but the third person perspective as a common step to look at and interpret a situation. The basic idea that behavior harmful to health is learned was one of the most important, because it goes along with the fact that this can also be counteracted by behavioral medicine measures and therapies. Behavioral medicine thus represents an experimental, scientific field that determines, predicts and controls behavior through observations and comparisons. In this way, symptoms of mental disorders are specifically identified and treated, while at the same time the patient’s ability to act is expanded. Consideration is not so much given to the mental processes, but rather behavioral techniques are developed to help the patient understand and control himself. Present circumstances play a greater role than past events. Intervention programs for the treatment of the disorders or illnesses form the basis, while research is conducted under these conditions to determine the connection between psychological and somatic processes and the resulting clinical picture. Problematic behavior is primarily based on learning processes and is reversed or changed through just such processes. Intervention programs are adapted to a person’s individual problems without searching for the causes or the actual origin responsible for a possible psychological disorder. Such behavioral interventions show particular success in less complex psychological disorders.
Treatments and therapies
Therefore, there are no specific standard programs in behavioral medicine, but some models and procedures are worth highlighting. These include the multicausal condition model. This assumes that body and mind are not considered separate, but that all mental processes can be measured and explained by the electrochemical process in the brain. Accordingly, every mental process causes neurophysiological changes. The knowledge thus gained is based on findings from the field of psychophysiology, in the study of stress and emotions. Since there is an obvious connection between neuroendocrine activity, cognitive operations, cortical and subcortical activities and subjective experience, behavioral medicine can be guided by these in order to explain and investigate an interaction between the levels. Thus, new therapeutic concepts have been developed about this, which have been applied not only to psychological disorders, but also to physical complaints or chronic pain. Before the psychosocial and physical form of the illness is examined, behavioral medicine also establishes a diagnosis and behavioral analysis of the patient in order to be able to address the patient individually. One form of this is the SORKC model. This is a behavioral model according to the psychologist B.F. Skinner, who invented programmed learning, and was extended by Frederick Kanfer. It describes the basis of five determinants in the learning process and thus serves as an objective test of therapeutic modes of action. The model implies that a stimulus affects an organism, resulting in an emotional response. This in turn results in an action, which may be a countermeasure or repression. If the situation occurs more frequently, behaviors are thus formed, which in turn give rise to behavioral disorders and diseases, which are to be combated by counterbehaviors or changes in the stimulus.
Diagnosis and examination methods
An essential aspect in behavioral medicine is the patient’s own implementation of the concepts. For this purpose, the subjective perception of the symptoms is strengthened and the processing of the disease is checked by psychometric tests and interviews. In this way, the patient’s own perception is trained so that, for example, keeping a diary is an important processing step during therapy. The patient should learn to interpret and assess his own behavior and the disorder subjectively. A special method of behavioral medicine is confrontation therapy, which is based on the findings of classical conditioning. Especially in the case of panic and obsessive-compulsive disorders or anxiety states and phobias, this method is used in different ways, through which the affected person confronts himself with his fears. These include methods such as systematic desensitization, anxiety management training, flooding, a form of stimulus overload and immediate confrontation, and the screen technique. Behavioral medicine addresses three points in the disease process. It looks at the stimuli, the response made to them, and the resulting disorder. If the stimuli result in increased symptomatology, it is possible for the patient to control and eventually avoid the occurrence of the stimuli.
