Archives of General Psychiatry · 1967 · 271 citations · 1 references
EducationPsychiatryPsychologyAbnormal PsychologyCounseling TechniquesPsychotherapyAnxiety DisordersBehavior TherapyBehavioral InterventionsClassical ConditioningPsychotherapy For Anxiety DisordersRelaxation TechniquesAnxiety MechanismsAnxiety ResponsesBehavioral Relaxation TherapyCompeting Stimuli
Neuroses are viewed as learned, maladaptive reaction habits accompanied by anxiety, and are considered remediable through classical learning techniques such as counter‑conditioning and positive re‑conditioning. The book serves as a primer on behavior‑therapy techniques for treating neuroses. The authors illustrate counter‑conditioning—evoking a competing response like muscle relaxation—to inhibit anxiety, note that assertive actions and sexual arousal can also suppress anxiety, and describe positive re‑conditioning as rewarding adaptive behavior while withholding rewards for maladaptive responses, focusing on phobias, sexual inadequacies, and inhibitions. They claim the techniques have general efficacy for all neurotic problems.
The authors have put forth this book as a primer of behavior therapy techniques for dealing with the neuroses. They chose to report on phobias, sexual inadequacies, and inhibitions, as well as lesser problems. However, they make claims for more general efficacy in dealing with all neurotic problems. They view neuroses as learned, unadaptive reaction habits which are accompanied by anxiety, and as such are remediable by techniques derived from classical learning theory, including such things as counterconditioning and positive reconditioning. Through counterconditioning the arousal of anxiety by a stimulus is inhibited by the evocation of a "competing response," such as muscle relaxation, an example of the "reciprocal inhibition principle" (which is not discussed or elaborated in the book). Assertive actions and sexual arousal can also inhibit anxiety responses. Positive reconditioning operates by rewarding adaptive behavior and by not rewarding unadaptive
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