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Understanding habits and conditioning<\/h2>\n
How many different psychotherapy theories or therapies can you name?\u00a0 One, two, twenty? Many of them will have their own perspectives on creating and changing habits. Whether you are a student, wishing to develop helpful and positive habits or you are a therapist working with a client, addressing unwanted habits, an awareness of different perspectives can offer choice in how you approach habit work.<\/p>\n
As creatures preferring habit, we tend to repeat the same behaviours in the same situations and contexts. \u00a0Habits form as we repeat the same behaviours in given situations as it is less work for the brain to repeat a pattern, rather than working on a ‘fresh approach’ each time. \u00a0Imagine how much mental effort and physical dexterity would be required to learn to tie your shoe laces every time you wanted to put them on…<\/p>\n
There are numerous psychological perspectives on the subject of habits.\u00a0 From a body biology perspective, we can learn to respond in certain ways so that we can do things quicker than we could if we had to think through the individual stages (consider how you brush your teeth).\u00a0 Thus, we can develop physiological habits. From a psychodynamic or psychoanalytical perspective (e.g. Freud), habits are influenced by unconscious drives, urges and experiences from childhood. Thus, a client who may have seen a psychoanalyst or psychodynamic therapist, may say their smoking habit is a replacement for being weaned from breastfeeding too early as a baby. \u00a0A behavioural approach considers that our external environment influences us to behave in a certain way, yet in a more \u2018mechanical\u2019 machine-like way, whereas, contrastingly, cognitivists consider behaviour is driven by our emotions and allows for the impact of free will…<\/p>\n
A key component of behavioural work is the impact of learning. Instead of considering that we have inherited certain responses and behaviours, the behaviourists consider that we start learning from the moment we are born.\u00a0 Some of what we learn becomes normal, beneficial behaviour, and some can be abnormal, limiting or unhelpful.\u00a0 We can think of this learning as \u2018conditioning\u2019.\u00a0 Ivan Pavlov, with his famous salivating dogs, is recognised for the term \u2018classical conditioning\u2019 (associative learning).\u00a0 Pavlov\u2019s dogs were conditioned with the ringing of a bell when food was provided, after repetitions, they began to salivate for food just at the sound of the bell, even with no food present. \u00a0Associations were created between the \u2018stimulus\u2019 in their environment and a naturally occurring stimulus.\u00a0 Just as you can hear an ice-cream van for the first time and it means nothing, so as you become used to the musical tune and its connection with ice-cream, when you later hear the tune, so you may find yourself thinking of ice-cream. For clients, their learning happens through interactions with their environment and this directs their behaviour.<\/p>\n
To break the simple concept down even further; an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) such as stimulus in the environment e.g. stomach flu, produces an unconditioned response (UCR), the natural response, in this case, nausea.\u00a0\u00a0 A stimulus which usually produces no response (neutral), when associated with the UCS can create a conditioned stimulus (CS).\u00a0 For example, the stomach flu sufferer may associate the UCS with eating a certain food, such as pizza (CS). When the conditioned stimulus is associated with the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) it creates a new conditioned response (CR).\u00a0 For example, the pizza (CS) eaten before becoming sick with stomach flu (UCS) now generates a feeling of nausea just at the sight of the pizza (CR). This can then happen even without the initial UCS being present.<\/p>\n
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The behavioural theory does not take into account feelings, thoughts and emotions, just actions, with three stages to developing an association. Firstly, there is the natural response to a stimulus, such as your mouth watering when you taste lemon juice. Then, during the conditioning stage, a picture of a lemon is repeatedly shown when you taste or smell lemon juice.\u00a0 Finally, the mouth will water when just a picture is shown.<\/p>\n
In therapy, a man may have a fear of spiders.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t born with one, but every time his mother saw one near him she would shriek and drag him away. After a while, when he saw a spider, he had learned to shriek and run away on his own.\u00a0 This can happen over time, or quite quickly.\u00a0 In addition to learning to respond with fear, associations can be created by any of the senses.\u00a0 Someone may have seafood during dinner and later vomit (unrelated to the food), they may then associate the seafood with becoming sick.\u00a0 We can certainly use taste aversions in the therapy room, perhaps creating an association between the desire to eat chocolate and the unpleasant image (to them) of maggots crawling out the chocolate.\u00a0 You can even use a planned taste aversion to prevent an unplanned one…\u00a0 Cancer patients may develop an aversion to food if they associate it with being sick.\u00a0 By deliberately giving them a strongly flavoured food, such as soup with garlic or soy, their association with that and the sickness can thereby avert an unplanned aversion to health-promoting food. When students are learning hypnotherapy, many tutors will work to give the students positive emotional experiences during their learning; if they associate negative experiences, such as humiliation, they may develop an aversion to that type of learning environment \/ subject.<\/p>\n
Responses to a stimulus can be \u2018infectious\u2019. With vicarious conditioning, watching the reaction of another person can lead to a reaction themselves.\u00a0 For example, a queue of children waiting for a vaccination.\u00a0 The first child cries a little when given the vaccination, then the next one cries a little more (expectancy), and before long the children are crying before even seeing a syringe.<\/p>\n
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Hypnotherapists can use conditioning all through the therapy process.\u00a0 Some hypnotherapists have a \u2018consultation\u2019 chair and a \u2018hypnosis\u2019 chair; by asking the client to move into the hypnosis chair when they are about to start the hypnosis, the client becomes accustomed to going into hypnosis in that chair.\u00a0 You may have control over the lighting in the consulting room.\u00a0 Just dimming the lights prior to hypnosis can create the same expectancy or anticipatory effect.\u00a0 Within hypnosis, the ubiquitous \u2018click\u2019 of the fingers as a re-induction is a clear example of a conditioned response, as it the response of a client to a created cue word.<\/p>\n
When observed, the response to a \u2018click\u2019 induction can seem to be so quick that it is beyond human consideration and almost mechanical in terms of speed of response.\u00a0 However, not all responses can be attributed to \u2018man as machine\u2019.\u00a0 As classical conditioning supports nurture over nature, it may not always fully consider the complexity of human behaviour.\u00a0 For example, it doesn\u2019t allow for any input of \u2018free will\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u2018Operant conditioning\u2019 moves beyond classical conditioning and introduces the concept of rewards (strengthening a behaviour) and punishments (diminishing behaviour) as a means of directing or \u2018modifying\u2019 behaviour.\u00a0 If an office worker gets \u2018punished\u2019 with extra work when they return from their lunch break early, they are going to learn to get back to work just on time, or perhaps even late.\u00a0 With operant conditioning, initial reward of a behaviour is frequent, with it diminishing over time as the behaviour is refined or \u2018shaped\u2019.\u00a0 For example, if a student is too quiet in class, when they start to answer questions they are praised by their tutor for each response.\u00a0 Over time however, the tutor will focus towards only praising when they answer correctly and then to only praising for outstanding answers.<\/p>\n
Whilst operant conditioning can offer answers to the hypnotherapist in relation to learning, directing behaviour and changing habits, social learning theory (Bandura) suggests that instead of personal experience, we can learn automatically, from observation.\u00a0 Thus, an individual can learn through observation, leading to imitation of what they have observed, and subsequent reward or punishment. This can be replicated within a hypnotherapy session using metaphor and future pacing.<\/p>\n
The behavioural approaches outlined above do not particularly consider cognitive factors.\u00a0 In contrast, \u2018cognitive therapy\u2019 focuses on our thoughts, instead of our actions.\u00a0 Cognitivists consider the mind to be an information processor, with functions such as perception, language, memory, thinking, attention, and consciousness.\u00a0 Rather than the simpler \u2018stimulus-response\u2019 of behavioural approaches, with cognitive therapy, it considers stimulus leads to mental processing which then leads to a response. To understand an individual\u2019s behaviour, there is often a need to understand these mental processes.<\/p>\n
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In reality, a habit may have been formed and maintained by a combination of factors.\u00a0 For example, with the habit of nail biting; a client can do it when they are anxious, bored, stressed, or irritated. \u00a0Initially, from a social learning, perspective, it could have been copied from a parent or other child and could then have become an unconscious process (i.e. they are not aware they are doing it). From a behavioural perspective, an aversive substance may be used on the nails, such as bad tasting nail polish or marmite (although this approach alone is not always successful, as some clients grow accustomed to the taste and may even come to like it). From an operant conditioning perspective, reward, in terms of positive care of the nails, together with reinforcement of the behavioural aversion can be more effective.\u00a0 From a cognitive perspective, addressing the anxiety or other triggering emotions that cause the habitual behaviour to happen can lead to extinction of the habit as the stimulus-response cycle has then been interrupted.<\/p>\n
Finally, there are many views on how long it takes to change a habit.\u00a0 The initial change can happen in a mere moment, but by repeating the new response, it can then develop into a habit.\u00a0 Research on habit formation (Lally, Potts & Wardle 2010), suggests that automaticity (automatic or habitual response) tends to level out at around 66 days after the first daily performance of the action.\u00a0 Thus, for clients who are changing their habits, it can be good to encourage repetition of the desired behaviour for around 10 weeks to enable the new behaviour to become \u2018second nature\u2019.<\/p>\n
We hope this blog has been helpful, but if you have any more questions on habits and conditioning do get in touch<\/a><\/strong> because we’re always happy to help! We make a habit of it!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n References <\/p>\n Would you like to become a HypnoTC Professional Hypnotherapist?<\/strong><\/p>\n Would you like to be able to create bespoke hypnosis experiences for your clients? Then join us on our Professional Hypnotherapy Diploma course.<\/p>\n We are passionate about our training and providing the best quality training that we can. You are invited to find out more about our Professional Hypnotherapy Diploma course and ask us any questions you may have. We are always happy to help.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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\n<\/strong><\/em>Lally P, van Jaarsveld CHM, Potts HWW, Wardle J. How are habits formed: modelling habit formation in the real world. Euro J Soc Psychol. (<\/em>2010);40:998\u20131009.<\/span><\/p>\n
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