ABSTRACT

IN order to support their contention that their methods should be implemented on a widespread scale, behaviour therapists are, we feel, obliged to demonstrate at least one and preferably all of the following advantages over other methods of treatment. Does behaviour therapy produce a larger number of recoveries from neurotic illness? Does behaviour therapy produce quicker recoveries? Does behaviour therapy produce recoveries in more types of neurotic illness than other therapies? The number of people who have been treated by behaviour therapy is now in excess of one thousand. The number of cases reported in the literature is in the region of nine hundred. 1 The case history material and small-scale studies described in earlier chapters, while they are instructive and suggestive, do not and cannot permit a general appraisal of the effectiveness of behaviour therapy. This assessment must depend ultimately, on the results of properly controlled, prospective investigations of large samples of neurotic patients.