The strategy of the active (London, 1964) therapies is to manage the patient's re-sponses and to rearrange social stimulus con-figurations so that desired behavioral responses are elicited. Such approaches postulate that behavior variations are attributable to the contextual situation. In contrast, the relationship and psychoan-alytic therapies focus on internalized dyna-misms or prebehavioral processes, be they cognitive or emotive. These therapies assume• that the major source of behavior variation is attributable to states within persons. The present authors assert that this distinc-tion is both artificial and refractory to prog-ress in psychotherapy. Hunt (1965) has argued that variation in behavior is due to the interactions between these two factors. Hunt argues that behavior is primarily due to the development of intrin-sic motivations which results from an orga-nism's informational interaction with the envi-ronment. The human developmental process, seen in this context, is a progressive formation of a style of assimilating information from the environment. In five instances of the au-thors were able to modify very quickly the overt behavior related to school attendance. Such behavioral change, however, did not ap-pear to deal satisfactorily with certain omi-nous behavioral attributes common to these children. The consideration of one representative case of school phobia which follows has a dual focus. The first section reports the process and context of the therapy. The second section de-velops the characterological phenomena ob-served in this symptom complex. As a whole this discussion is an argument that it is neces-sary to treat both the overt symptomatic be-havior and the pre-behavioral organizational structures. The essential problems of the school phobia cases treated were defects in the developmental process. These defects were manifested in an unresolved symptom complex of unusual passivity, sexual identity distor-tion, and excessive denial of anger. These pri-mary problems were not resolved although the overt behavioral symptoms associated with school attendance were eliminated. From the standpoint of symptom relief most authors have insisted that a gradual but prompt return to school be enforced regardless of the child's emotional reaction or parental ambivalence (Berecz, 1968). This procedure is illustrated in the following case of a ten year old Caucasian male who lived in an in-tact family with his six year old brother. The therapists' initial counsel to the parents was that they insure prompt return to school and regular attendance thereafter. They re-sponded with a spontaneously derived plan. The mother agreed to take the boy to school each day and to remain in the car outside the school building. Each day she planned to stay a briefer period until she could leave immedi-ately after arriving. Although school transpor-tation and a school cafeteria were available, the father brought him home for lunch each day. The parents' withdrawal schedule was con-siderably slower than seemed appropriate to the therapists. Its slowness reflected the par-ents' uncertainty and also their pattern of in-dulgence of the child. More precisely their plan epitomized the mother's tendency to maintain the child in a relationship of depen-dency, and the father's typical withdrawal from involvement unless the situation called for detached, authoritarian intervention. The therapists suggested reducing the 95