Amongst the different types of therapy, you might have heard about habit reversal therapy (HRT). It is quite self-explanatory because it deals with reversing habits and what habits would need to be reversed unless they are bad, right?
The reason for the reversal of these habits could be the fact that they are affecting your livelihood negatively and are interfering with having a normal and healthy life.
The Choosing Therapy publication professionally defines this kind of therapy as a multi-component, evidence-based treatment used to assist clients in breaking unwanted and repeated habits and behaviours. “Common conditions treated through HRT include tics, depression, hair-pulling, smoking, nail-biting, gambling, skin-picking, anxiety, and other concerns.”
How these therapy sessions are conducted is according to a few structural components. These are detailed by several health and wellness publications.
Awareness training: The Zen Care publication states that awareness training with self-monitoring helps participants identify cues and patterns in behaviour, such as muscle sensations or urges, through self-monitoring forms, enabling them to anticipate and respond appropriately. “This might mean, for example, noticing the muscle sensations that occur just before a tic, or noticing the mounting muscle tension that occurs with the urge to pull hair in trichotillomania.”
Competing response training: This component of the therapy involves the therapist and client collaborating on replacing old behaviours with new, desirable ones, such as chewing gum instead of fingernail biting, to reduce the consequences of these behaviours, this is according to Choosing Therapy. “In this case, the client is still engaging in similar behaviours, but the consequences of chewing gum are far less than fingernail biting.”
Motivation and compliance: The source mentioned above also states that motivation and compliance are crucial in therapeutic efforts, “The better someone can commit to a treatment plan, the more likely they can succeed. In the third phase of HRT, a therapist and client work to use triggers as a method of inspiring motivation.” It is further stated that self-praise and support from others help encourage the client.
Relaxation training: Happiful, an online health and wellbeing magazine claims that unwanted behaviours can sometimes become more common due to stress. Therefore to assist in reducing stress, the publication states that a therapist may recommend relaxation training and self-care techniques such as progressive muscle relaxation, breathing techniques, mindfulness, meditation, and visualisation.
Generalisation of new skills: On this last component of HRT, the online publication Very Well Mind states that “People are encouraged to practice their new skills in a variety of different contexts, not just those that they have mastered to date.”
Happiful claims that HRT is an effective treatment, with studies showing a significant reduction of unwanted habits in individuals who underwent the process. The publication further claims that therapists may recommend other forms of therapy, such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) or dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT), to find the most effective treatment for each individual’s unique experience.
Also see: Children need therapy too, here’s why…
