Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T01:48:03.826Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Systematic Desensitization Therapy: An Analysis of Results in Twenty-seven Patients

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

J. D. Hain ,
R. H. G. Butcher  and
I. Stevenson
J. D. Hain
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Medical College of Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama; Department of Neurology and Psychiatry, University of Viriginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville, Virginia
R. H. G. Butcher
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Medical College of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia
I. Stevenson
Affiliation:
Department of Neurology and Psychiatry, University of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville, Virginia
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The need for the development of shorter and more effective techniques of psychotherapy justifies a careful investigation of any methods which offer this possibility. A number of therapeutic techniques (7, 15, 18, 20) now often subsumed under the heading of Behaviour Therapy (4) and based on various principles of learning theory call for examination, since their exponents claim that these methods can make therapy both shorter and more effective than can other methods, e.g., those based on psychoanalytic theory. Published reports of results with behaviour therapy to date consist largely of the assessment of results made by a therapist on his own patients, e.g., Wolpe (20, 21), Lazarus (9), Rachman (12). Cooper (2) studied results achieved by other therapists on thirty patients treated with various techniques of behaviour therapy. His survey included a comparison, using “blind” independent assessors, of a group of patients treated with behaviour therapy and a matched group of patients treated by other techniques. Cooper concluded that this comparison showed a definite advantage for behaviour therapy in the symptomatic treatment of phobias, but he could find no evidence supporting the claim of a superiority of the methods of behaviour therapy over conventional techniques in producing general changes. Unfortunately Cooper does not report the experience level of the therapists in his study except to say that they were a “variety of student and staff psychologists”. Evidence for a superiority of behaviour therapy must derive from a controlled comparison of matched groups of patients treated with techniques of behaviour therapy and with other techniques by therapists of comparable competence. But, pending judgment from such a controlled study, we believe ample evidence exists that techniques of behaviour therapy do bring comparable improvements more rapidly than do other treatments in some patients. The greater precision and shortening of therapy for these patients would alone constitute a very notable advance in psychotherapy, apart from claims of a wider or general applicability of these techniques. For this reason we believe it important to investigate these various techniques in as much detail as possible. Wolpe describes the most important of them as systematic desensitization (20, 21).

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 112 , Issue 484 , March 1966 , pp. 295 - 307
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1966 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Behrle, F. C., Elkin, , Miriam Tate, , and Laybourne, P. C. (1956). “Evaluation of a conditioning device in the treatment of nocturnal enuresis.” Pediatrics, 17, 849–856.Google Scholar
2. Cooper, J. E. (1963). “A study of behaviour therapy in thirty psychiatric patients.” Lancet, i, 411–415.Google Scholar
3. Denker, P. G. (1946). “Results of treatment of psychoneurosis by the general practitioner.” New York State J. Med., 46, 2164–2166.Google Scholar
4. Eysenck, H. J. (1960). Behaviour Therapy and the Neuroses. Oxford.Google Scholar
5. Guthrie, E. R. (1935). The Psychology of Learning. New York.Google Scholar
6. Hastings, D. W. (1958). “Follow-up results in psychiatric illness.” Amer. J. Psychiat., 114, 1057–1066.Google Scholar
7. Herzberg, A. (1947). Active Psychotherapy. New York.Google Scholar
8. Landis, C. (1937). “Statistical evaluation of psychotherapeutic methods”, in Concepts and Problems of Psychotherapy (ed. Hinsie, L. D.). New York.Google Scholar
9. Lazarus, A. A. (1963). “The results of behaviour therapy in 126 cases of severe neurosis.” Behav. Res. & Ther., 1, 69–79.Google Scholar
10. Lorr, M. (1962). “Relations of treatment frequency and duration to psychotherapeutic outcome”, in Research in Psychotherapy, (eds. Strupp, & Lubovsky, ). Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
11. Meyer, V., and Gelder, M. G. (1963). “Behaviour therapy and phobic disorders.” Brit. J. Psychiat., 109, 19–28.Google Scholar
12. Rachman, S. (1959). “The treatment of anxiety and phobic reactions by systematic desensitization.” J. abnorm. soc. Psychol., 58, 259–263.Google Scholar
13. Saslow, G., and Peters, A. D. (1956). “A follow-up study of ‘untreated’ patients with various behaviour disorders.” Psychiat. Quart., 30, 283–302.Google Scholar
14. Sherrington, C. S. (1947 ed.). The Integrative Action of the Nervous System. New Haven, pp. 83–107.Google Scholar
15. Stevenson, I. (1959). “The direct instigation of behavioural changes during psychotherapy.” A.M.A. Arch. of gen. Psychiat., 1, 99–107.Google Scholar
16. Stevenson, I. (1961). “Processes of ‘spontaneous’ recovery from the psychoneuroses.” Amer. J. Psychiat., 117, 1057–1064.Google Scholar
17. Stevenson, I. and Hain, J. D. “The barber shop syndrome: or how different things can look alike.” (in preparation).Google Scholar
18. Terhune, W. B. (1949). “The phobic syndrome.” Arch. Neurol. Psychiat., 62, 162–172.Google Scholar
19. Wolpe, J. (1954). “Reciprocal inhibition as the main basis of psychotherapeutic effects.” A.M.A. Arch. Neurol & Psychiat., 72, 205–206.Google Scholar
20. Wolpe, J. (1958). Psychotherapy by Reciprocal Inhibition. Stanford.Google Scholar
21. Wolpe, J. (1961). “The systematic desensitization treatment of neuroses.” J. nerv. ment. Dis, 132, 189–203.Google Scholar
22. Wolpe, J. (1963). Correspondence in Lancet, i, 886.Google Scholar
23. Wolpe, J. (1964). Personal communication.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.