GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING: BEHAVIOURAL THERAPIES ETHNIC AND RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE

      A good part of human behaviours usually occur and may have to repeat over and over again if encouraged but may extinct if not encouraged. Most of our human characters are either antecedent or consequential. Writing on behavioural model, Graighead, Kadzin and Mahoney (1976) hold that a persons’ behaviours are caused by present events that occur before  and after the behavior have been performed. Antecedents are events that occur or are present before the person performs the behavior.
Consequences are events that occur after and as result of the behavior. For example, being a tyrant and despotic in rulership is an antecedent for peoples’ votes, mandate and support. Being forced out of power also is the consequence of peoples’ withdrawal of their mandate and support.
            Invariably some antecedents elicit behaviours and are classified as acceleration behavior therapies. Reinforcement and stimulus control in behavior therapy are used to elicit behavior. Nigeria can give national honours to leaders who are good in accommodating diverse peoples’ views on religion and ethnicity. Such people could be identified especially if there had never been antecedents for ethnic and religious provocations in their domains and recognized nationally. That way, others would tend to emulate them. This is acceleration behavior therapy.

     Deceleration behavior therapies include therapies like punishment, differential reinforcement and aversion therapies. There are behaviours which are used to substitute other undesirable behaviours. It does not add to our national development if bad leaders are identified and still, are allowed to occupy their elected positions in perpetuity. Such leaders fuel ethnic and religious violence. Such leaders should be forced to abdicate their thrones and free minded and accommodative leaders enthroned. This is different and will make other people to change their mindset and encourage ethnic and circular diversity for national progress and sustainable development.
            The youths who usually go on rampage at the instance of the leaders can be exposed to processes of combining reinforcement and punishment. Behavior parent training and management taken economy and contingency contracts can be applied to check mate the irate youths. This is the principle that the Federal Government of Nigeria now applies in the Niger Delta area to salvage peace in the area.

            Vicarious extinction and skill training of these youths can also be applied to hold the attention of the youths. These youths can also be taken through exposure therapy in different forms. The threatening fear that other ethnic or religious groups could eclipse another should be debunked through progressive mind relaxation and systematic desensitization. Self management should be emphasized to the youths who usually take to the streets at the instance of any provocation. Ethnic and religious related obsessions and compulsions can be treated using implosive therapies and flooding to accomdate other people and religions. Such people and even the ethnic and religious leaders can be asked to model some people whose behaviours are employable and exemplary. They can then be directed on use of assertive trainings.

            Upon all, cognitive behavioural therapies can be applied on both the ethnic and religious leaders as well as the irate youths who usually take to the streets at the slightest provocation and admonition. The youths should be made to practice thought stopping techniques and should first even understand that no children of the leader usually join others to wreck the resulting mayhem that the bad ethic and religious leaders flinch on the society. They should also be made to understand, that they are the common people who stand to loose after destroying the meager amenities provided by the government. The principle of the Rational Emotive Therapy(RET) should be thought to the youths. Anxiety related and traumatic stress disorders in youths should be treated. All these are cognitive intervention strategies which should be designed alongside coping skills meant to cushion the spirit of accommodating other peoples’ views and differences. Self instructional trainings amongst the youths should also be encouraged as these would reduce aggressive and disruptive behaviours in the society.
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