Introduction To Operant Conditioning

Everyone has an addiction or a bad habit. Some people’s are biggers than others and some people will not want to admit to theirs, but everyone has one. My clients addiction, or habit if you will is that she really likes to caffeine. The teen I talked to was a Junior in High School and she was not sure on whether she wanted help or not. Her family had signed her up because they thought she had a caffeine problem. When she walked in she seemed a little fidgety and she seemed to refuse to make eye contact with me. My client kept trying to change the subject on me. For example, when I would ask her a question about her family she would try to change the subject by talking about a family dinner and then asking me what my favorite food is. This …show more content…
“Operant conditioning is a method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behavior.Through operant conditioning, an association is made between a behavior and a consequence for that behavior. ” (Kendra Cherry,2014,October,27, Introduction To Operant Conditioning,2014,October,27) If my first plan does not work I am going to ask her for her consent to put her in rehab. She will stay in the rehab for a few weeks without any Monsters,Coffee,Amps,Pop, or anything else that has caffeine in it and at the end of those weeks she will be escorted into a room that has nothing in it except for a table with a glass of water and a Monster on it. (The caffeine drink of choice is a Monster because she said it was her favorite drink that had caffeine in it. She said and I quote “If I was addicted to anything that had caffeine in it, it would have to be Monsters because I go crazy if I can’t have at least one a day.”) (Client #1,2014,October,26, Caffeine Addiction,2014,October,27) The point of putting the Monster and water in front of her so she has to pick one. If she goes for the Water she will have passed the rehab test and be let out. If she grabs the Monster she will have failed the rehab test and be brought back to her room where she will stay another few weeks until we are ready to have her take the test again, of course the next time there will be two different choices so she won’t be able to figure out what we are …show more content…
I have great faith in this young lady to stop this addiction. I understand that she does not believe that she has an addiction right now, but after I talk to her and tell her how serious her addiction is and what we are going to do I believe she will be on board with the plans. This bright young lady has a great future ahead of her and I think it would become even brighter when we get rid of her caffeine addiction. Every addiction is healable it just takes the right amount of faith and the perfect amount of time. We will heal her addiction if it takes years, but we are hoping it will