1. Scared straight

2. ‘Scared Straight’ is a program designed to deter juvenile participants from future criminal offenses. Participants visit inmates, observe first-hand prison life and have interaction with adult inmates. These programs are popular in many areas of the world.
Petrosino and colleagues (2002) investigated “the effects of programmes comprising organised visits to prisons by juvenile delinquents (officially adjudicated or convicted by a juvenile court) or pre-delinquents (children in trouble but not officially adjudicated as delinquents), aimed at deterring them from criminal activity.”

3. Nine trials met the criteria for the study
Nine trials met the criteria for the study. The researchers’ results indicated “the [Scared Straight] intervention to be more harmful than doing nothing. The program effect, whether assuming a fixed or random effects model, was nearly identical and negative in direction, regardless of the meta- analytic strategy.” In other words, Scared Straight not only doesn’t work, it may actually be more harmful than doing nothing.
Another meta-analysis showed “Scared Straight” interventions could possibly worsen conduct-disorder symptoms (Lilinefeld, 2005).  A meta- analysis conducted by Aos and colleagues (2001) showed that “Scared Straight” and similar programs produced substantial increases in recidivism (chronic relapse into crime).

4. According to Dr. DeMichelle, Senior Research Associate American Parole and Probation Association, “Scared Straight” programs rely on a deterrence-based strategy that fails to consider the driving mechanisms of deterrence. These mechanisms include: certainty of receiving a punishment or negative stimuli following a behavior, and swiftness of the punishment or negative stimuli (referring to temporal proximity of punishment to the unwanted behavior).
In other words, punishment or negative stimuli must be presented shortly after the unwanted behavior.

5. [“Scared Straight”], I believe, was conjured up and implemented by folks due to its intuitive appeal of doing something harsh or painful to kids so they won’t commit crimes in the future. But, the reality is that the approach is devoid of scientific investigation of human behavior”, says Dr. DeMichelle (Hale, 2010).

6. Behavior, Cognitive and group therapies

7. Behavior therapy
Therapy that applies learning principles to the elimination of unwanted behaviors
Doubt the healing powers of awareness and view behaviors as the problems

8. Classical Conditioning techniques
Is reconditioning a solution?
O. H. Mowrer- bedwetting solution with a boost in self-image
Elevator claustrophobia
Counterconditioning- behavior therapy procedures that use classical conditioning to evoke new responses to stimuli that are triggering unwanted behaviors

9. Exposure therapies Mary Cover Jones- rabbit (1924)
Joseph Wolpe- exposure therapies- expose people to what they normally avoid or escape (behaviors reinforced by reduced anxiety)
Face the fear, and thus overcome their fear of the fear response itself.

10. Systematic desensitization
A type of exposure therapy that associates a pleasant, relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety-triggering stimuli. Commonly used to treat phobias
Progressive relaxation
Find peace within imagined situations
Virtual reality exposure therapy- an anxiety treatment that progressively exposes people to electronic simulations of their greatest fears, such as airplanes flying, spiders, or public speaking
-flying!

11. Aversive conditioning
A type of counterconditioning that associates an unpleasant state (such as nausea) with an unwanted behavior (such as drinking alcohol)
Goal of producing an aversion to something the person SHOULD avoid
Nail biting? Nasty-tasting nail polish (taking positive to negative)
Is this totally successful? Eh… The problem arises because cognition influences conditioning. Needs to be paired with other treatments

12. Operant conditioning
Voluntary behaviors are strongly influenced by their consequences
Therapists practice “behavior modification”- reinforcing desired behaviors and withholding reinforcements for undesired behaviors
Studies have shown that positive reinforcement without punishment is the most effective
Rewards may vary-- Token economy (an operant conditioning procedure in which people earn a token of some sort for exhibiting a desired behavior and can later exchange the tokens for various privileges or treats

13. How durable? Shift to “real-life” rewards (durability)
Is it right? (controversial)

14. Cognitive therapies
Therapy that teaches people new, more adaptive ways of thinking, based on the assumption that thoughts intervene between events and our emotional reactions
The depressed person interprets a suggestion as criticism, disagreement as dislike, and praise as flattery..
If such thinking patterns are learned, then surely they can be replaced

15. Rational-emotive behavior therapy (REBT)
A confrontational cognitive therapy, developed by Albert Ellis, that vigorously challenges people’s ideological, self-defeating attitudes and assumptions (“Absurdity”)

16. Aaron Beck’s Therapy for depression
Originally trained in a Freudian techniques, he started to analyze the dreams of depressed people and found recurring negative themes of loss, rejection, and abandonment that extended into their waking thoughts In therapy, he and his colleagues attempt to reverse the catastrophizing beliefs about themselves, their situations, and their future General questioning seeks to reveal irrational thinking, and then to persuade people to remove the dark glasses through which they view life

17. Cognitive behavior Therapy (CBT)
A popular integrative therapy that combines cognitive therapy (changing self- defeating thinking) with behavior therapy (changing behavior)
Promote new ways of thinking and to practice a more positive approach in everyday settings
For example.. A person might keep a log of daily situations associated with negative and positive emotions, and engage more in activities that lead them to feeling good

18. Group therapy
Therapy conducted with groups rather than individuals, permitting them therapeutic benefits of group interactions
Saves therapists’ time and clients’ money
Offers a social laboratory for exploring social and behaviors and developing social skills
Enables people to see that others share their problems
Provides feedback as clients try out new ways of behaving

19. Family therapy
Therapy that treats the family as a system, views an individual’s unwanted behaviors as influenced by, or directed at, other family members

20. Self-help groups
Many focus on stigmatized or hard-to-discuss illnesses