ABSTRACT

The most basic of BA interventions is simply assigning engagement in non-depressed behaviors between sessions to contact diverse, stable sources of positive reinforcement. Although a variety of techniques are included in BA and are discussed in this book, basic activity scheduling may in fact be the active ingredient that is responsible for BA's empirical success. If one examines the treatment components that have been included in all studies of behavioral therapies for depression, scheduling of non-depressed activities is the one constant (Cuijpers et al., 2007). Furthermore, the component analysis of CT by Jacobson and colleagues (1996) suggested that simple activation may be responsible for the empirical success of the whole CT package. Since that study, Jacobson and his colleagues developed a version of BA (Martell et al., 2001) that performed very well in a large randomized trial (Dimidjian et al., 2006). That version includes activity scheduling but also includes a primary focus on avoidance which may also be important, particularly for moderate to severely depressed clients.