Undergraduates Can Learn About Behavior Therapy by Using It to Help Others

Title
Undergraduates Can Learn About Behavior Therapy by Using It to Help Others
Publication Date
2004
Author(s)
Malouff, John M
Type of document
Journal Article
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy
Place of publication
United States of America
UNE publication id
une:6454
Abstract
Behavior therapy often involves clients in 'learning by doing' - for instance, by practicing relaxation or social skills or trying feared behaviors (e.g., Spiegler & Guevremont, 2003). I apply the principle of learning by doing when I teach behavior therapy to upper-level undergraduates by asking them to use behavior therapy procedures to help a person overcome a mental health problem. Over the past 12 years I have used this assignment with over 500 students. I felt confident originally about the appropriateness of this assignment because research comparing treatment outcomes of clients randomly assigned to either briefly trained paraprofessional therapists (e.g., hospital workers and college students) or mental health professionals has repeatedly found that the outcomes of the paraprofessionals are relatively good (Hattie, Sharpley, & Rogers, 1984). This article describes the structure and evaluations of the assignment as I most recently used it.
Link
Citation
The Behavior Therapist, 27(4), p. 71-72
ISSN
0278-8403
Start page
71
End page
72

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