Behavioral Treatment in Natural Environments

Description of the Strategy

The natural environment has long been an ally for behavior therapy in the production and facilitation of therapeutic change, especially in anxiety disorders and mood disorders. Although behavior therapy more commonly occurs in analog settings (e.g., in office, in hospital, day treatment), ultimately, therapy gains realized in such artificial settings have to be transported, or generalized, to the natural settings in which any given individual patient conducts his or her personal life. This eventuality and necessity have led to relying on natural-environment settings in cases where analog settings alone do not sufficiently produce the desired clinical outcome. This is especially relevant in cases when there are problems with generalizability, or transportability, to settings in which the patient later has ...