ABSTRACT
Many methods have been suggested for changing behaviour; behaviour modification does not rest on a single principle or method. Two of the most widely used are the methods of desensitization and pf aversion therapy; both derive essentially from the principles of Pavlovian conditioning. Certain neurotic symptoms can be observed in otherwise fairly normal persons; indeed normality and neurosis constitute a continuum. Some of these symptoms, for example simple phobias, provide an exceptionally clear-cut means of measuring the effects of the treatment. Psychiatrists often object to experiment, saying that monosymptomatic phobias are rare; that the subjects of these experiments are not neurotics of the kind referred to clinics; and that the relevance of these demonstrations to their day-to-day work is doubtful. Proof of the effectiveness of behaviour therapy using patients as subjects is less easy to give, particularly as psychoanalysts have been remarkably coy in refusing to take part in joint experimental studies comparing the effects of different types of therapy.
