Mastery and pleasure technique

{{Short description|Technique in behavioral therapy}}

{{notability|date=May 2015}}

The mastery and pleasure technique is a method of cognitive behavioral therapy for the treatment of depression.{{Cite book|title = Cognitive Therapy of Depression|last = Aaron T.|first = Beck|publisher = Guilford Press|year = 1979|isbn = 0-89862-919-5|location = New York|pages = 128–129|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=L09cRS0xWj0C&pg=PA128}} Aaron T. Beck described this technique first. The technique is useful when patients are active, but have no pleasure. The patients shall rate on a 5-point-scale (or a 10-point-scale{{Cite book|title = Overcoming depression. A cognitive therapy approach for taming the depression beast|author1=Mark Gilson |author2=Arthur Freeman |publisher = Oxford University Press|year = 1999|isbn = 978-0-19518381-8|location = New York|pages = 59|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=7wN8yFP5qtIC&pg=PA59}}) how much pleasure they have and how successful they are when they do something. The patients record this hourly.{{Cite book|title = Clinical Handbook of Psychological Disorders, Fifth Edition: A Step-By-Step Treatment Manual|last = Barlow|first = David H.u|publisher = Guilford Publications|year = 2014|isbn = 978-1-4625-1326-0|location = New York|pages = 296|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=FCTyAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA296}}

• The patients shall learn "to recognize partial successes and small degrees of pleasure" because depressive patients tend to the cognitive distortion of all-or-nothing thinking.{{Cite book|title = Cognitive Therapy for Depressed Adolescents|author1=T.C.R. Wilkes |author2=Gayle Belsher |author3=A. John Rush |author4=Ellen Frank |publisher = Guilford Press|year = 1994|isbn = 9780898621198|location = New York|pages = 222–223|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=yT_Ii4JYgV8C&pg=PA222}}
• The patients can also learn that Mastery and Pleasure are independent. By the combination of rating mastery and pleasure unrealistic ideas like "Life should be all fun" or "The only thing worth spending time on is work to accomplish things." can be challenged.
• Lewinsohn has the theory that patients need reinforcers to feel good.{{Cite book|title = The Practice of Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy|author1=Richard S. Stern |author2=Lynne M. Drummond |publisher = Cambridge University Press|year = 2001|isbn = 0-521-38742-6|location = Cambridge|pages = 175|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=u4o8SdHda60C&pg=PA175}} The idea is that patients can get reinforcers from activities, but they "want to wait for their mood to lighten before engaging in activities."{{Cite book|title = Foundations of Counseling and Psychotherapy: Evidence-Based Practices for a Diverse Society|author1=David Sue |author2=Diane M. Sue |publisher = John Wiley & Son|year = 2012|isbn = 9781118542101|pages = 209|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=HSRHAAAAQBAJ&pg=PT209}} So Beck asks clients to perform activities as a behavioral experiment. The patients can then increase systematically the activities with higher ratings of mastery and pleasure and look for new activities.{{Cite book|title = Textbook of Psychotherapeutic Treatments|last = Gabbard|first = Glen O.|publisher = American Psychiatric Publishing|year = 2009|isbn = 978-1-58562-304-4|location = Arlington|pages = 222|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=7WLuS8SohT4C&pg=PA222}}