ABSTRACT
The therapeutic transactions presented here that were applied to an obsessive-compulsive case call attention to some aspects of psychotherapy that behavior therapy literature has largely neglected — the classes of behavior that in ‘dynamically’ (that is, psychoanalytically) oriented therapy are referred to as defense mechanisms, transference, and resistance. An important reason for this neglect is probably the idea that if a behavior therapist uses dynamic terms he is contaminated by the psychoanalytic theories associated with them. Locke (1971) went as far as to suggest that the use by behavior therapists of mentalistic sounding terms in the description of their patients' behavior is evidence that behavioral principles are not sufficient for the modification of certain types of maladaptive behavior. Actually, as Waters and McCallum (1973) point out, the mentalistic-sounding terms used by behavior therapists are shorthand for behavioral operations and devoid of ‘dynamic’ referents. When the behavior therapist uses the term ‘anxiety’ the referents are objective (Wolpe, 1958). The patient's reported perceptions and feelings are also behavioral data which it would be foolish to ignore.
