The magic of a name

Abstract

Forsyth (1997), a third-generation self-described member of the behavior therapy movement, suggests that behavior therapy has had a checkered history over the past 30 years: at times progressing, at times stagnating, and at other times regressing. He laments the decline of theory, and the lack of influence by basic research, as two primary elements missing from contemporary behavior therapy. I agree with almost everything Forsyth says, but would cast the problem in a somewhat different context. In this commentary I suggest that the problem is not the absence of theory in contemporary behavior therapy, but rather the absence of behaviorism. Behaviorism, in my view, is not a theory, but an epistemology that provides a methodology for studying and changing behavior. I do believe that there is very little in basic science that is relevant to the practice of behavior therapy, and that theory is all too plentiful, rather than absent. However, plentiful does not necessarily mean helpful.