Behavioral Activation

Behavioral activation is a form of psychotherapy that encourages people to engage in activities likely to improve their mood, built on an understanding of an individuals specific behavior patterns and on practical methods, such as planning, that help them overcome avoidance. It is considered a form of clinical behavior analysis, sometimes described as third generation behavior therapy, and it traces its roots to Charles Ferster's 1973 functional analysis of depression, which extended B. F. Skinner's account of depression. The underlying theory holds that too little reinforcement from the environment, or too much punishment from it, can contribute to depression, so the treatment aims to increase the reinforcement a person receives from their environment while reducing the punishment, and it is commonly used within cognitive behavioral therapy as well as in applied behavior analysis, clinical behavior analysis, and functional analytic psychotherapy.