Psychotherapy and the Psychology of Behavior Change.

Abstract

This book could well be titled A Challenge to the Complacent Clinician A book jacket excerpt, It is patient behavior change, and not minor elaboration of standard psychotherapeutic techniques in which we are interested . is expanded in the introduction to the more inclusive generalization that contemporary psychotherapy is inadequate to meet the current social demands for services. This can best be remedied by radical, highly manipulative innovations from convention-bound methods. Equating psychotherapy with changing people's undesirable behavior, the authors propose that efficiency towards that end be enhanced by the development of techniques derived from the extrapolation to psychotherapy of findings in other fields of behavioral research. Delineating sectors of refactory patient behavior, they collate pertinent studies from diverse, essentially nonclinical fields. A series of hypotheses pertaining to psychotherapy are derived and offered for testing by the clinical researcher and, hopefully, the practicing clinician. Introducing a prefatory chapter on research methods