Burton, Westen and Kowalski define motivation as, ‘the driving force that energises goal-directed behaviour, which leads us to pursue some things and avoid others’. Motivation encompasses a number of alternative approaches and perspectives, including the cognitive, humanistic and evolutionary perspective. In particular, the cognitive perspective of motivation highlights theories of motivation that interrelate to Susan’s therapy rehabilitation. The cognitive perspective of motivation often focuses on goals, goal-setting and desired outcome established through social learning (Burton, Westen and Kowalski, 2012). Susan’s rehabilitation at the therapy clinic would have a particular focus on the attainment and achievement of specific goals relating to her treatment. These conscious goals would enhance the performance and desired outcome of Susan in her therapy to assist with her memory impairments and physical injuries to the right side of her body. However, only maximum performance is attained under specific conditions. Susan must experience diversity between what memory and physical capabilities she already …show more content…
Learning theories are frameworks that attempt to categorise learning, with a particular focus on the experiences that shape behaviour, adaptive learning and principles of association (Burton, Westen and Kowalski, 2012). There are three learning theories paradigms that could be applicable to Susan’s therapy: the behaviourist, cognitive and constructive paradigms. For Susan, the behaviourist paradigm is the most applicable to her referral as it has a particular focus on repetition, association and emotions. For Susan’s difficulties with memory and physical impairment, Skinner’s theory of operant conditioning is the most effective to utilise in therapy as it will strengthen the prospects of success. “Operant conditioning refers to an individual learning to operate on the environment to produce a consequence; the two types of environmental consequence that produce operant conditioning are reinforcement and punishment” (Burton, Westen and Kowalski, 2012). A principle of operant conditioning is positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement strengthens behaviour by providing an environmental consequence that increases the probability that the behaviour is more likely to occur again (McLeod, 2015). Susan’s therapy would be enhanced significantly