By Zainab Fazal, M.ADS, BCBA
- Urge Surfing Beat Cravingsdialectical Behavioral Training Reliaslearning
- Urge Surfing Beat Cravingsdialectical Behavioral Training Programs
“Emotion surfing” is a form of emotion exposure therapy that helps clients learn to apply mindful acceptance when they are emotionally triggered. By practicing emotion surfing, clients observe and accept all parts of their emotional experience, instead of reacting to it, or trying to control or change it. Urge surfing is a meditation or mindfulness exercise that can help to control impulsive behaviours. It’s a powerful tool for addressing addiction and has been proven to work in many different types of setting. Evaluation of behavioural skills training for teaching abduction-prevention skills to young children. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 38, 67-78. Miles, N.I., & Wilder, D.A. The effects of behavioral skills training on caregiver implementation of guided compliance. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 42(2), 405-410. Often the reason we want to react to an urge is a mistaken belief that we won’t be able to stand the urge in a few moments. It is the fear of the future, not of the present that compels us. By surfing our urges in the present moment, we realize that we don’t have to act right away. We don’t have to act at all!
bSci21 Contributing Writer
On June 22, 2015, I received a phone call from a staff at a local residential home serving adults with developmental disabilities. With a lot of excitement, she asked if I watched NBC Dateline the night before. Before I could answer, in even more excitement, she said, “that guy did that strategy you were talking about in class!”
Xmeye software download. Let me give you a little insight into what she was talking about. She was referring to the segment on NBC Dateline called “My kid would never do that: gun safety”, and the guy was Dr. Raymond Miltenberger.You can check out the segment here.
If you teach anyone, anything, behavior analysis has a secret to share with you. It’s the strategy the staff was talking about – Behavior Skills Training (BST). It is a method to teach students, staff, parents, and anyone else you are teaching a new skill. Dr. Miltenberger defines BST as “a procedure consisting of instruction, modeling, behavioral rehearsal, and feedback that is used to teach new behaviors or skills” (2004, p. 558). And that’s exactly what it is, a 4-step teaching strategy that works!
BST teaches a person what to do — that is, what behaviors to engage in under a particular circumstance.It allows for practice within the program so that the person can become fluent with the skills.It is an effective train-the-trainer procedure. And perhaps most importantly, can be individualized to each person. Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?
Let’s break down each of the steps:
Instruction – Provide a description of the skill, its importance or rationale, and when and when not to use the skill. Repeat this step as necessary.
Modeling – Show your participant how to perform the skill. In-vivo modeling is recommended.
Rehearsal – Practice, practice, and practice! Allow the participant opportunities to practice the skill. Recent research suggests that participants should be able to practice in-situ. The trainer should record data on correct and incorrect responding during this step.
Feedback – The trainer should provide positive praise for correct responding and some form of corrective feedback for incorrect responses. Ice fishing games for free.
Some requirements before you can implement a BST program include: the person receiving the training must have the pre-requisite skills required for the behaviors you are teaching, the skill must include a chain of behaviors (a number of skills), and you must be able to role-play or video model the skills.
In a Registered Behavior Technician training course I was providing, I used BST to teach various skills to participants. Any skill I was teaching that met the afore-mentioned requirements I taught using BST. Based on the feedback forms from eight cohorts, participants reported that they enjoyed and learned the most when they got to practice the skills being taught, and got immediate feedback.
Here’s an example of how it was used in the training. The skill was implementing preference assessments with clients.
Instructions were provided on why preference assessments are done, when and with whom to do them, how to use the data sheet, the materials required, and how to complete the assessment.
I modeled completing a preference assessment, using one of the course participants as my “client.”
Participants paired up and practiced administering the preference assessment with their colleagues.Participants were able to practice the skill as each preference assessment included 30 trials!
I went to each group and provided feedback on what each person was doing correctly and incorrectly.
What have been your experiences with Behavior Skills Training? Let us know in the comments below. Also, be sure to subscribe to bSci21 via email to receive the latest articles directly to your inbox!
Urge Surfing Beat Cravingsdialectical Behavioral Training Reliaslearning
Recommended Readings:
Johnson, B.M., Miltenberger, R.G., Egemo-Helm, K., Jostad, C. J., Flessner, C., & Gatheridge, B. (2005). Evaluation of behavioural skills training for teaching abduction-prevention skills to young children. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 38, 67-78.
Miles, N.I., & Wilder, D.A. (2009). The effects of behavioral skills trainingon caregiver implementation of guided compliance. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 42(2), 405-410.
![Beat Beat](/uploads/1/3/7/4/137412989/610002997.jpg)
Miltenberger, R. (2004). Ice cream cookie recipe. Behaviour Modification: principals and procedure (3rd ed.) Belmont, CA. Wadsworth Publishing.
Miltenberger, R.G., Flessner, C., Batheridge, B., Johnson, B., Satterlund, M., & Egemo, K. (2004). Evaluation of behavioural skills training procedures to prevent gun play in children. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 37, 513-516.
Steward, K.K., Carr, J.E., & LeBlanc, L.A. (2007). Evaluation of family-implemented behavioural skills training for teaching social skills to a child with asperger’s disorder. Clinical Case Studies, 6, 252-262.
Zainab Fazal, M.ADS, BCBA, began her career in the developmental disabilities field in 2002, and has dedicated her clinical work and research in the area of Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA). She has worked for many years in assessing and developing comprehensive programs plans for children, youth, and adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), learning disabilities, other developmental disabilities, behavioural challenges and mental health issues. Her recent work includes training front-line staff and teachers to use ABA in therapeutic and school settings, and has successfully trained individuals for the Registered Behaviour Technician credential with the Behaviour Analyst Certification Board. She is also an adjunct professor at Seneca College teaching ABA courses in the Behavioural Sciences program. Zainab is the founder and director of Phoenix Behaviour Services, a private practice in Toronto, Canada. You can follow her on twitter @Phoenix_ABA and reach her at [email protected].
At Columbus Park, we use Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) to teach mindfulness skills that patients can use to better tolerate the thoughts, emotions, and urges they experience. One of those skills is urge surfing.
Urge Surfing Beat Cravingsdialectical Behavioral Training Programs
Urge surfing is a mindfulness technique used to get through an urge without acting on destructive impulses. When you notice an urge, rather than fighting against it, imagine you are on a surfboard riding with it. Notice the shifting sensations, how they rise and fall, come and go. Try to observe and describe the urge in a nonjudgmental and nonattached manner.
Like waves, urges rise, building up to their cresting point, and then fall. As the intensity of an urge builds, it feels like it is going to keep on getting worse, and that if you don’t give in to it, it will last forever. When you experience an urge and then act on the impulse, your brain makes the connection that you can only make the urge go away by engaging in the behavior. However, research tells us that urges typically last for 20-30 minutes, which means the feeling will pass whether you engage in a behavior or not. Over time, you are able to reteach your brain that it is possible to experience an urge without acting on it.
One way to surf the urge is by breaking it down into 1 or 5 minute intervals – set a timer, and when the timer goes off – reassess your urge. In this way, you can make the time riding out the urge more manageable and break the connection between the urge and behavior.
Most any of the DBT distress tolerance skills would be suitable! In DBT, we love acronyms, and I’ll go into further detail about crisis survival skills like TIP, ACCEPTS, and IMPROVE in future blogs. In general, finding things that distract, relax, and/or change your physiology are helpful in riding the wave. Below are some examples you might find effective:
- Hold ice in your hand, or against your face/forehead/neck
- Take a warm shower
- Take a few minutes to focus on your breathing – slow and steady.
- Call a friend or family member
- Play a playlist of your favorite songs
- Watch funny You Tube videos
- Light a scented candle or use some scented lotion or oils
- Imagine a very relaxing scene or re-pay a joyful memory in your mind
- Say encouraging statements to yourself as though you are talking to your best friend
“You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn how to surf” – Jon Kabat-Zinn