Atlas›Domains›Domain II
Domain II of XVI

Behavioural & cognitive

185guides
4,470weighted interventions
1991median founding year
196714mean Agape · Logos · Mythos

All 185 guides · Trinity explorer · Lineage map

Domain synthesis

What "healing" means here

This domain is dominated by a learning-theory conception of change: the problem is treated as learned behaviour (overt or covert) that can be unlearned, re-conditioned or re-trained, with symptom relief as the usual criterion of success. In the counterconditioning and exposure families, healing means the weakening of a conditioned fear bond and the replacement of avoidance with approach II-006 II-007 II-009 II-014. A notable tension runs through the exposure lineage itself: older accounts frame recovery as habituation or extinction (fear falls within and across sessions), while the inhibitory-learning account reframes it as new learning that competes with, rather than erases, the old association, so that fear tolerance and violated expectancies, not fear reduction, mark success II-008 II-016 II-013. Operant programmes define healing as rearranged contingencies and quality-of-life gains rather than insight II-022 II-030 II-032 II-023. The cognitive therapies relocate healing to belief change: symptoms persist because of catastrophic misinterpretation, irrational beliefs or "stuck points," and change comes from testing and revising them II-074 II-077 II-101 II-106. The metacognitive and acceptance strands break explicitly with this: for metacognitive therapy and ACT, healing is changing one's relationship to thoughts and feelings, not their content II-095 II-165 II-178. The positive-psychology family redefines the target altogether, treating healing as the active cultivation of well-being, strengths and meaning rather than deficit repair II-181 II-182 II-184 II-185. Several guides are deliberately framed as harm accounts rather than methods, flagging where a tradition caused damage (aversion therapy, graded exercise therapy) II-051 II-053.

What "the self" or "the person" is here

The founding image is behavioural: the person is a repertoire of learned responses under the control of antecedents and consequences, with "thoughts, feelings and actions alike" treated as behaviour in context II-028 II-022 II-029. Staats's psychological behaviourism makes personality itself a set of learned basic behavioural repertoires II-029. The cognitive turn adds an information-processing self with schemas, appraisals and core beliefs II-077 II-091 II-078. Constructivist and narrative branches go further, picturing the person as a meaning-maker or "personal scientist" who builds reality through bipolar constructs or life stories II-083 II-087 II-088 II-084. Kanfer's self-management model treats the person as a self-regulating system of alpha, beta and gamma variables, the therapist a temporary "change assistant" II-062. The acceptance and compassion therapies assume a self with multiple evolved emotion systems (threat, drive, soothing) and the capacity for self-as-context observation II-177 II-165. Several modalities widen the person beyond the individual: the relational self of couple and conjoint work II-108 II-063, the family or peer culture in youth and forensic programmes II-038 II-152 II-143, and the whole environment in token economies and milieu programmes II-032 II-033 II-023.

Mechanisms of change the domain names

Respondent mechanisms are foundational: Pavlovian conditioning and reciprocal inhibition II-006 II-007, extinction and inhibitory learning / expectancy violation II-016 II-008 II-017, counterconditioning II-007 II-098, and, for the rewind and memory techniques, reconsolidation II-020. Operant mechanisms are equally central: reinforcement, shaping of successive approximations, stimulus control, differential reinforcement, negative punishment (response cost, time-out) and rule-governed behaviour II-037 II-068 II-034 II-035 II-036 II-030. Two-factor (Mowrer) accounts explain how avoidance maintains fear in flooding and implosive therapy II-014 II-015. The cognitive mechanisms are belief disconfirmation through behavioural experiments, Socratic dialogue and restructuring II-078 II-101 II-109, attributional retraining II-079, and retrieval competition between self-representations II-098. Bandura's self-efficacy drives the modelling family II-059. Emotional-processing theory underlies prolonged exposure II-011. Third-wave mechanisms include decentring and reduced experiential avoidance and fusion II-165 II-178 II-095, metacognitive-mode shift II-095 II-096, and training of the soothing/affiliative system II-177 II-176. A few invoke grace-like or public-health mechanisms that bypass inner change: lethal-means counselling changes the environment, not the mind II-137, and paradoxical intention works by removing effort II-070.

Shared techniques

Practice and exposure is the signature technique family, from graded hierarchies and in-vivo/imaginal/interoceptive exposure to massed one-session and intensive formats II-009 II-008 II-010 II-013. Relationship is used instrumentally: as contingent responding in FAP, limited reparenting in schema therapy, disciplined personal involvement in CBASP, and motive-complementary responding in MOTR II-168 II-091 II-090 II-063. Rehearsal, role-play and modelling recur across social-skills, assertiveness and youth programmes II-059 II-060 II-054 II-055 II-056 II-057. Attention and breath appear as relaxation, applied relaxation and stimulus-control routines II-066 II-067 II-068, and, transformed, as mindfulness and body scanning in the MBSR lineage II-169 II-170 II-171. Imagery is used for desensitisation, rescripting, covert conditioning and worry exposure II-006 II-052 II-019 II-091. Story and word feature in narrative, trial-based and cognitive-processing work II-088 II-094 II-106. Group and community techniques organise token economies, psychoeducation, peer-helping and class-style courses II-032 II-073 II-152 II-141. Writing and homework (thought records, action plans, diaries, contracts) are near-universal structuring devices II-078 II-060 II-036.

Developmental or stage models

Many modalities impose phase structures on treatment itself. Three-phase templates are common: Meichenbaum's conceptualisation–acquisition–application in stress inoculation II-080, Guidano's post-rationalist phases II-084, and the orientation/exploration/transformation of self-system therapy II-093. Kanfer's seven-phase self-management process is the most elaborated II-062. Relapse prevention models change as a process with a lapse–relapse distinction and the abstinence-violation effect II-124 II-172. CBT for bipolar and for suicide use staged or "mode" sequences and relapse-signature detection II-119 II-128 II-130. Developmental models of the person appear in CBASP, which casts chronic depression as Piagetian preoperational functioning II-090, in schema therapy's unmet childhood needs II-091, and in moral-development staging (Kohlberg) behind the forensic programmes MRT, ART and EQUIP II-148 II-150 II-152. The Good Lives and risk-need-responsivity models stage rehabilitation around life plans and risk tiers II-155 II-154. Grief work names movement from acute to integrated grief II-127.

Distinctive contribution

What this domain offers that others in the atlas mostly lack is an explicit, testable theory of learning coupled with manualised, measurable and replicable procedures: graded hierarchies, fidelity scales, session-by-session protocols and defined target behaviours II-009 II-022 II-032 II-158. It is uniquely strong in disorder-specific and setting-specific engineering, extending the same toolkit to classrooms, wards, prisons, emergency departments and homes, and in deliberately scalable, self-administered and single-session formats II-033 II-154 II-137 II-142 II-181. Finally, it contains its own reflexive critique, with several guides written as harm accounts that document where the tradition's methods injured people II-051 II-053.

All 185 guides in this domain

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