ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the vast potential that behavioral interventions hold and that the reader will begin to view them as "go to" interventions for indicated clinical conditions. It describes three standard behavioral interventions that are delivered in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): behavioral activation for depression, problem solving, and exposure for anxiety-related disorders. Even the best-laid cognitive behavioral interventions are met, at times, with obstacles. Although the "father" of behavioral approaches to the treatment of depression, Peter Lewinsohn, and his colleagues developed a productive line of research through the 1980s; eventually, cognitive therapy took "center stage," and stand-alone behavioral interventions for depression faded away to some degree. Unexpectedly, behavioral interventions alone were just as efficacious as a full package of CBT at the end of treatment, as well as at a two-year follow-up assessment. Like behavioral activation, there is strong empirical evidence suggesting that exposure is just as efficacious as a full package of CBT.
