Outline and evaluate the behavioural approach to psychopathology (12 marks)

One assumption of the behavioural approach is that only behaviour is important and that this behaviour is learned through experience. The processes of this learning include classical conditioning where associations are made between one thing and the other. Operant conditioning where abnormal behaviour is reinforced or the social learning theory (SLT) where abnormal behaviours are learnt vicariously. For example, a child may observe its mother obsessively cleaning the house and being praised by the father for doing so. This consequence (e.g. praise) may be enough to initiate the same abnormal behaviour (e.g. OCD) in the child.

The behaviourist approach assumes that abnormal behaviours that have been learnt can be unlearnt using the same processes (operant conditioning, classical conditioning and SLT). So, undesirable or abnormal behaviour e.g. a phobia, can be replaced with more desirable or normal behavior using therapies such as systematic desensitisation. One strength of the behavioural approach is that therapy can focus directly on the client's maladaptive behaviour.
For example, if a patient suffers from arachnophobia then the treatment can be directed solely towards getting rid of the fear of spiders instead of referring to the client's previous or medical history.
This shows that changing the behaviour from maladaptive to adaptive is sufficient for a cure.

One limitation of the BM is that only behaviour is considered, the thoughts and feelings of cognition are not taken into consideration.
For example, for certain illnesses such as depression, it is difficult to imagine that even with a genetic component, there are no environmental influences that could also be triggering the conditions. If you remove the symptoms, the cause still remains and the