Review of Behaviour Therapy and the Neuroses

Reviews the book, Behaviour Therapy and the Neuroses edited by H. J. Eysenck (1960). This extensive book is a compilation of papers which describe treatment measures designated as “behavior therapy” which are based upon “conditioned or reciprocal inhibition.” The book is valuable in that it presents a body of theory and practice which has been developing over half a century, dating from the early work of J. B. Watson. A variety of procedures for conditioned inhibition as well as positive conditioning are outlined. The clinical material includes the treatment of fears and phobias, obsessional and compulsive states, hysterias, stuttering, alcoholism, homosexuality, and enuresis. The individual papers are presented in more moderate terms than the editorial comments, and do afford the reader an opportunity to pursue, in perspective and in an organized manner, a method of treatment which has developed from what has come to be known as modern learning theory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)