It is estimated that, throughout their lives, one of every four people will suffer from some type of mental disorder , the most frequent being those linked to anxiety and depression. The treatment of these problems and disorders can be approached in multiple ways from psychology, one of the most common being the use of behaviour modification techniques.

Within these techniques, the use of third generation therapies is increasingly frequent, which modify behaviour while working on aspects such as the patient’s relationship with the problem and the context in which the aforementioned person lives.

Behavior modification therapies

When we talk about third generation therapies we are talking about one of the most recent types of behavioral therapy, developed taking into account the limitations of its predecessors. In order to understand what they are, it is first necessary to remember what a technique or behavior therapy is

The person with a mental disorder often experiences profound discomfort as a result of the realization or effects of the realization of behavioral and thought patterns that do not serve him/her efficiently to explain or interact with the world, resulting in behavior that is not very adaptive and limited in action and/or thought.

Behavioral or behavior modification techniques are based on the idea that it is possible to modify a person’s behavioral and cognitive patterns by applying different learning-based techniques . Although the past is taken into account when analysing how the current situation has been reached, the work to be done focuses on the current problems and symptoms and how to change them.

The modification of such patterns or the acquisition of others will allow the subject to have a more adaptive behavior, fighting and facing the symptoms of his problem in a more or less direct way and allowing the relief of the subject’s suffering and the optimization of his skills and functionality as a human being.

What are third generation therapies?

The third generation therapies or the third wave of behavioural therapies are that group of therapies and treatments created with the purpose of carrying out a modification of the patient’s behaviour but from a global approach and close to the person rather than to the problem, taking into account the patient’s experience of his/her problem and how the social and cultural context has produced that his/her behaviour is not very adaptive.

Unlike other behavior modification techniques, third generation therapies rely on the power of context and dialogue to achieve such modification through the acceptance of the problem by both the patient and the therapist.

Your objectives

The main objective of this type of therapy is to change the way in which the treated individual perceives the problem , without attempting extreme control or removing their behaviour as if it were something to be ashamed of, but rather helping them to observe and rethink the relationship between this behaviour and the functionality they have been given, as well as the link with their habitual functioning, modifying it from the moment of acceptance.

In other words, it is necessary to see the treatment not as a fight against symptoms, but as a vital reorientation that allows the generation of significant, real and permanent changes.

The third generation therapies make up for some of the shortcomings of their predecessors , such as the lack of focus on the specific aspects of the treatment that produce improvement, the provocation of rigid behaviours that may in turn be unadaptive and the little attention paid to the patient’s habitual communicative context, as well as to the perception of their own suffering.

Some relevant aspects of these therapies

Third generation therapies have a series of characteristics of great interest in the treatment of psychological problems .

Firstly, they consider that an individual’s behaviour is not fully explainable if its context is not taken into account. If the treatment is reduced to treating some symptoms directly without taking into account the variables that make the behaviour useful or necessary for the patient, the generalization of the treatment to real life will be complicated for the individual in treatment.

Another aspect to consider is that third generation therapies take into account the modulating influence of language , the fact that what other people tell us and what feedback they give us regarding our behaviour will make us see the behaviours carried out in one way or another.

The therapeutic relationship

Linked to the previous point, it is remarkable that third generation therapies give a fundamental role to the therapeutic relationship .

While this is common to all or almost all types of existing psychological therapy, in the case of third generation therapies this relationship is seen as an element or instrument of change per se, as a communicative and social interaction occurs that can modify behavior directly or indirectly. Other types of therapy, although they consider the therapeutic relationship to be fundamental, see it more as the means by which the patient applies the techniques and not as something that produces a modification by itself.

Beyond symptoms

Finally, and as we have already seen, treatment based on third generation therapies involves working with deep aspects of the person, going beyond the presence of symptoms to act on subjectivity and personal perception so that it is possible to act on aspects such as life goals, self-perception or the feelings and emotions caused both by the problem situations and by other life circumstances that may have led to the disorder.

Three third generation therapies

Although they are not the only ones (there are also others such as Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, behavioral activation therapy or integrated behavior therapy for couples), three examples of third generation therapies are briefly explained below.

Functional Analytical Therapy

This therapy focuses on the functional analysis of behavioural patterns , exploring not only the problem behaviour but also what the purpose of the behaviour is and that other behaviours are carried out with the same purpose, with special emphasis on the therapeutic relationship and verbal communication, while taking into account that behaviour is determined by a large number of variables.

The aim is to help the client identify clinically relevant behaviours , to help analyse what is behind it, to provoke these behaviours and adaptive alternatives, to genuinely reinforce those that imply improvement and to help provide an explanation and interpretation of the behaviour so that it can be applied to other life contexts.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

This technique is one of the best known within the third generation therapies, being its main objective to help the patient to self-discover the fundamental values of the patient and to help him/her to accept the pain of the search for a happy life. It is mainly focused on the work on values without evading or pathologizing suffering .

Through self-acceptance, the observation of what we think and what beliefs provoke such thoughts and the focus on what is current, we seek to guide the patient to become involved and committed to following their own values regardless of what society dictates, living as one believes should be lived.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy

Another of the best known therapies within the third generation, dialectical behaviour therapy has been designed to help patients with serious emotional problems that induce self-destructive behaviours, such as self-mutilation or suicide attempts.

Currently, one of the therapies of choice when treating Borderline Personality Disorder is based on the acceptance and validation of the patient’s suffering in order to work dialectically and through various modules to control and manage extreme and unstable emotions. The patient is helped to trust his/her emotions and thoughts and is helped to find factors that push him/her to want to go on and to improve his/her skills regarding emotional self-regulation, tolerance to discomfort, self-observation and management of interpersonal relationships.

Bibliographic references:

  • Almond tree, M.T. (2012). Psychotherapies. Manual CEDE de Preparación PIR, 06.
  • Hayes, S.C. (2004). Acceptance and commitment therapy, relational frame theory, and the third wave of behavioral and cognitive therapies. Behavior therapy, 35, 639 – 665.
  • Mañas, I. (n.d.). New psychological therapies: The third wave of behavioral therapies or third generation therapies. Psychology Gazette, 40; 26-34. University of Almería.