Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Behavior Therapy

Reviews the book, International Handbook of Behavior Modification and Therapy by Alan S. Bellack, Michel Hersen, and Alan E. Kazdin (1982). Behavior therapy has come of age is clearly illustrated by the publication of this handbook. The book is an impressive statement attesting to the influence of behaviorism on the field of psychology. This is a massive volume, which, at first glance, is likely to deter all but the most committed behaviorist. It is, in fact, designed to be a resource/reference book, not an elementary survey of the field or a textbook, and this objective has clearly been met. It is written at a high level and assumes that the reader already has a solid background in the behavioral model. The title of the book is itself an interesting comment on the current state of behavior modification/therapy. The handbook is a sophisticated, indepth, overview of the field of behavior therapy, yet it is not a specialist's book. This handbook fills a gap that has existed in the behavioral literature and does the job of providing a sophisticated level survey quite well. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)