Safety behavior

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Under Safety Code ( english safety seeking behavior ) is understood in the behavioral therapy those behaviors that contribute to the maintenance of fears without entering these fears. The term comes from Paul Salkovskis (1991), who originally distinguished three categories:

  • Situational avoidance: Those affected avoid situations in which they fear a negative consequence.
  • Escape: Leaving the situation as soon as fear occurs.
  • Subtle Avoidance: Behaviors designed to avert a feared disaster.

However, some authors differentiate avoidance behavior from safety behavior . Security behavior is intended to avert or reduce feared consequences and thus reduce the threat of a situation when one is already in the situation that one normally avoids. The original meaning has changed to the extent that two things are now understood under safety behavior:

  • Prepare for difficult situations to prevent anxiety from occurring
  • Strategies to reduce the likelihood of feared consequences.

Significance for disturbance models

Ordinarily, fear would habituate when the person exposed himself to the fear-inducing situation. Safety behavior is held responsible for ensuring that fears are maintained despite the experience that feared consequences will not materialize.

Social phobia

In their cognitive model, Clark and Wells (1995) assume that, among other things, security behavior is responsible for maintaining social phobia, since social situations cannot be consistently avoided. In addition, people with safety behavior are more conspicuous than without safety behavior, so that the behavior is often counterproductive, such as in patients with social phobia who try to avoid eye contact and look at the ground. Sometimes safety behavior also means that the feared reaction occurs sooner. For example, pressing your arms so that you can't see the sweating leads to more sweating.

Examples

Panic disorder : Sitting down fearful of falling over.

Phobic disorder : taking sedative medication

Social phobia: Control word and tone to make it look less ridiculous. Excessive preparation and hiding of anxiety symptoms (behavior control).

Obsessive-compulsive disorder : In obsessive-compulsive disorder, suppressing thoughts, wearing amulets or protective gloves should be rated as safety behavior.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Thomas Lang, Sylvia Helbig-Lang, Dorte Westphal, Andrew T. Gloster, Hans-Ulrich Wittchen: Exposure-based therapy of panic disorder with agoraphobia: A treatment manual . Hogrefe Verlag, 2011, ISBN 978-3-8409-2341-8 , pp. 15 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  2. ↑ a b Kristin Mitte, Thomas Heidenreich, Ulrich Stangier: Diagnostics for social phobias (=  compendia psychological diagnostics . Volume 9 ). Hogrefe, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-8017-2043-8 , pp. 46 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  3. ^ Anne Boos: Cognitive behavior therapy after chronic trauma. A therapy manual . 2nd Edition. Hogrefe, Göttingen 2014, ISBN 978-3-8017-2316-3 , pp. 203 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  4. ↑ limited preview in the Google book search
  5. ↑ a b Ulrich Stangier: Cognitive behavior therapy for social phobia . In: Psychotherapy . tape 8 , no. 1 . CIP-Medien, Munich 2003, p. 133–144 ( cip-medien.com [PDF; 105 kB ]).
  6. ^ A b Ulrich Stangier, Thomas Fydrich: Social phobia and social anxiety disorder: Psychological basics, diagnostics and therapy . Hogrefe Verlag, 2002, ISBN 978-3-8409-1463-8 , pp. 160–162 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  7. ^ Christian Reimer, Jochen Eckert, Martin Hautzinger, Eberhard Wilke: Psychotherapy: A textbook for doctors and psychologists . Springer-Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-540-29988-2 , pp. 470 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  8. ↑ Rettenbach Regina, Christ Claudia: The Psychotherapy Exam: Compact course to prepare for the license to practice medicine examination according to the Psychotherapists Act with a commentary on the IMPP catalog . Schattauer Verlag, 2013, ISBN 978-3-7945-2875-2 , pp. 69 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  9. ↑ Steffen Moritz, Marit Hauschildt: Successful against obsessive-compulsive disorder: Metacognitive training - recognize and defuse thought traps . Springer-Verlag, 2011, ISBN 978-3-642-25303-4 , pp. 12 ( limited preview in Google Book search).