ABSTRACT
The various schools of thought among dynamic psychotherapists are too well known to require elaboration. Psychodynamic theorists have been aware of this possibility for many years, dating back at least to 1946 when Alexander and French published their book entitled Psychoanalytic Therapy. Evidence from learning theories themselves reveals that neurotic disorders are not necessarily the simple product of exposure to traumatic conditioning stimuli or to the operant conditioning of responses. Wolpe attributes the success of his technique to “systematic desensitization” and explains it on the basis of Pavlovian counterconditioning. He asserts that any “activities that might give any grounds for imputations of transference, insight, suggestion, or de-depression” are either “omitted or manipulated in such a way as to render the operation of these mechanisms exceedingly implausible”.
