Thirty-seven children successfully treated for nocturnal enuresis were followed-up. Short term relapse was determined by clinical contact for 6 months whilst long term monitoring was measured by a mailed questionnaire up to 4 years after treatment. The relationship between pre-treatment variables and relapse was examined with particular reference to maternal and child perceptions of the enuresis. Results suggest relapse was particularly related to the child's lack of concern over bedwetting.

The effects of implicit rewards upon adults' performance were examined in a study which replicated the design and procedures of previous research using children as subjects. Data revealed that unlike children, the adults in the present study did not show implicit extinction effects under certain experimental conditions. However, there were significant inconsistencies in performance across the two different conditions contrasted here, indicating effects attributable to the implicit reward paradigm and the order in which it occurs relative to other reward conditions.

Despite being a long recognized feature of Anorexia Nervosa, exercising has been largely neglected as a topic for research and treatment. An increasing cultural emphasis on fitness has highlighted the dangers of becoming addicted to exercise and its role in the development and maintenance of Anorexia Nervosa. Most estimates of the incidence of exercise addiction in the anorexic population are high, and the behaviour would appear to pre- and post-date the eating disorder.

In view of this, the development of an effective treatment method for this particular problem is needed. One such approach that employs cognitive behavioural techniques, including exposure and response prevention is described and illustrated by case example.

Prompts are assessed in terms of their ability to convey an understanding of the task to those with a severe mental handicap. On this basis, it is suggested that the most effective strategy for teaching manipulative tasks to this group may be one which combines stimulus and response prompts. Two case studies compared this procedure with two procedures which used response prompts only. The combined procedure was more effective in both studies. The studies also demonstrated the applicability of stimulus prompts to teaching the motor, as well as the visual, components of manipulative tasks.

This paper presents a case of a 13-year-old educably retarded girl with a seizure disorder who also presented with pseudo-seizures. Behavioural techniques, specifically planned to ignore the seizure and reinforcement of “seizure free” periods were used to eliminate the pseudo-seizures. The intervention was carried out simultaneously in multiple settings by school and medical personnel as well as parents. A four-year follow-up indicated that treatment gains had been maintained and had generalized over time and across settings.

A senior nurse with a 10-year history of hospitalization phobia was treated with a combined cognitive therapy, imaginal and in vivo exposure therapy package. All previous medical admissions for the subject had resulted in her being transferred to a psychiatric ward and being treated with neuroleptics. The cognitive therapy provided an explanation for the phobia and a rationale for the treatment, which secured compliance to the exposure therapy. Pre- and post-treatment fear ratings showed a large reduction. Follow-up data showed the subject to be free of all psychiatric symptoms in two subsequent medical admissions. It is suggested that an initial few sessions of cognitive therapy with intransigent phobics may be a pre-requisite for an exposure programme.

Teaching procedures encouraging the “errorless” acquisition of discriminations through the enhancement of criterion-related cues have proved popular and effective in work with individuals with severe learning difficulties. To date, however, their application has primarily been restricted to the learning of relatively simple discriminations, such as size and colour. The present study describes the successful implementation using two adults with severe learning difficulties of a teaching programme adopting this approach with respect to the skills of age and gender discrimination. Along with encouraging generalization and maintenance data, this success suggests that procedures involving the enhancement of criterion-related cues may have utility with a far broader range of tasks than previously considered.

A brief (5 week) multi-component intervention is described which successfully enabled a lady to overcome an intense fear of flying.

A pilot study is reported on a six session didactic large group treatment package for Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) patients referred to a primary care service. Thirty patients underwent the course. By combining a didactic therapy element with workshops, the therapy package allowed a much larger number of individuals to attend the group than could be dealt with in “traditional” group therapy. Two psychologists ran the course. There were few practical difficulties involved in running the course and the range of self-report outcome measures suggest that large group didactic therapy may be a clinically and cost-effective treatment for GAD.

This case study describes the use of a multi component behavioural programme in the treatment of a 13-year-old girl with multiple phobias of injections, dental and medical procedures who faced major surgery within 6 months. The treatment involved coping skills training, systematic desensitization, in vivo desensitization with participant modelling and homework assignments. Measures of anxiety via SUDS ratings, behavioural approach tests and self-report measures demonstrated the effectiveness of the treatment program and the subsequent maintenance of treatment effects at 8 months follow-up.

This paper presents case studies of two boys who had problems forming friendships, and who participated in a group treatment designed to enhance their social skills. The intervention consisted of both behavioural techniques and cognitive problem solving strategies. The boys' improvement was reflected in some of the formal measures of change, and in reports from parents and teachers. The paper addresses issues concerning the role of assessment, and the selection of appropriate measures of change.