This process of frank emotional reflection on your current state and how it differs from your preferences is the foundation of the Self-Reevaluation strategy
"How do you perceive yourself as a gambler, a drinker, or a sedentary person? How do you see yourself if you change your behavior? What will be the cost of that change, in time, energy, pleasure, stress, or image? What, overall, are the pros and cons of trying to overcome your problem?"
Possible forms of Self-Reevaluation:
- Value clarification (e.g. putting your priorities in a new order)
- Future visualization (e.g. "what will I be like after I make this change?")
- Pros vs. cons analysis
The Countering strategy works on a very simple premise: when the urge to engage in an unhealthy behavior strikes, sub in a healthier behavior instead. Countering strategies are popular among dieters — think of tactically opting for a healthy fruit snack when a potato chip craving strikes. Another famous example: smokers often try to aid their efforts to quit by popping a mint or a piece of gum whenever they find themselves longing for a cigarette.
Possible forms of Countering:
- Relaxation tactics
- Systematic desensitization
- Substitution (as described above)
The Environment Control strategy involves altering your environment to make behavior change easier. In this case, though, the strategy focuses on changing the environments that you yourself directly control, such as your home or your workspace. The most common and obvious type of Environment Control tactic is removing unhealthy temptations — such as junk food, tobacco, alcohol, and so forth — from your home. But Environment Control tactics can take more positive forms too, such as a reminder placed in your workspace to go straight to the gym after work instead of going home.
- Possible forms of Environment Control:
- Avoiding high-risk environments
- Removing risks from your own environment
- Making your environment more conducive to new behavior
- Equipping your environment with supplies for a new behavior
Consciousness-Raising is also one of the simplest and most straightforward behavior change strategies. Its premise: increase your level of knowledge and awareness around the issue in question so that you're better equipped to make good decisions about it. This strategy can involve arriving at deep revelations about yourself during therapy sessions, or something as simple as learning more about how to effectively balance diet and exercise for weight loss purposes.
Possible forms of Consciousness-Raising:
- Developing new interpretations of your thoughts, feelings or behavior with a therapist's help
- Learning more about how to navigate the world (e.g. financial info, info about how to seek mental health treatment, etc.)
- Revelations about the consequences of your behaviors or beliefs (e.g. realizing that you take your problems out on people, and that this behavior undermines your personal relationships)
- Picking up technical information that may be useful in pursuing a behavior goal (e.g. how to use the implementation intentions strategy for forming new habits)
The Emotional Arousal strategy is a cousin to the Consciousness-Raising it. Instead of working by providing useful information, it aims to aid behavior change by creating emotional momentum in the direction of the desired new behavior. Typically, this strategy works by evoking a strong emotional experience related to the problem at hand.
Possible forms of Emotional Arousal:
- Psychodrama
- Therapeutic role play
- Grieving (e.g. allowing yourself to feel the full pain of the loss of a loved one and to express the emotion you feel")
- An intense emotional experience that motivates change (e.g. losing a friendship over a past behavior)