ABSTRACT
Behavior therapy (or conditioning therapy) is the use of techniques based on experimentally tested principles of learning to overcome persistent un-adaptive habits. It has been mainly applied to the treatment of neuroses (Wolpe, 1958; Eysenck, 1960; Rachman, 1963), which, there is now good reason to believe, are persistent, unadaptive habits—most often autonomic habits of an anxiety response pattern. In all cases, it is a necessary preliminary to have a full picture of the stimulus antecedents of the neurotic reactions. While many such antecedents are easily discernible, and indeed may be brought forward by the patient among his presenting complaints, others may be quite obscure, recognized only after a great deal of questioning and observing the patient—and sometimes not even then.
