ABSTRACT
The assumptions and procedures of behavior therapy differ in many crucial aspects from traditional therapeutic approaches (Eysenck, 1960; Wolpe, 1958). However, in one aspect, psychotherapy based on reciprocal inhibition agrees with a number of therapeutic models. Both the more conventional models and the reciprocal inhibition approach place great emphasis on the concept of anxiety as an explanatory construct. Wolpe (1958, p. 33) defines neurosis as: “. . . any persistent habit of unadaptive behavior acquired by learning in a physiologically normal organism. Anxiety is usually the central constituent of this behavior, being invariably present in the causal situations.” Anxiety is reduced by the application of the reciprocal inhibition procedures. These procedures are based upon the assumption that, “if a response antagonistic to anxiety can be made to occur in the presence of anxiety-provoking stimuli so that it is accompanied by a complete or partial suppression of the anxiety responses, then the bond between these stimuli and the anxiety responses will be weakened” (Wolpe, 1958, p. 71).
