Case studies in behavior modification

Case Studies in Behavior Modification. Edited by Leonard P. Ullman and Leonard Krasner. Price, not given. Pp 401. Holt, Rinehart & Winston, Inc., 383 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10017, 1966. This book was written to make accessible in one volume, the products of the clinical application of learning theories, published since 1960. This was the year that Eysenck's book, Behavior Therapy and the Neurosis, was published. The current volume dif¬ fers from Eysenck's work in that he presented a theoretical frame of reference in the form of several historically important articles, whereas the present editors have written their own introduction. The book is intended for the undergraduate student in psychology. In addition it hopes to reach fellow professional workers, teachers, psychiatrists, social workers as well as clinical psychologists. The introduction takes up one sixth of the bulk of the book. The remainder consists of 50 articles written by a variety of authors who are identified by name but not by their profession or place of their professional activity. These authors, according to the editors, would generally categorize themselves as influenced by Skinner and operant conditioning. The articles are organized in five groups, the first dealing with the application of behavioral therapy in psy¬ chotic patients, both adults and children ; two sec¬ tions concern themselves with neurotic disturbances, personality disorders, and psychophysiologic dis¬ orders ; the last two sections deal with behavior dis¬ orders in children and with a variety of applications in the field of mental retardation. The editors in their introduction take the same position Eysenck did in his book, namely that psy¬ chotherapy is based on premises which so far have escaped scientific validation and that the visible results of behavior therapy, at least in terms of symptom removal, are as good and permanent, if not better than the results of psychotherapy. Where Eysenck, however, could see similarity between the psychoanalytic model and his own, and ends his presentation with a plea for cooperation between psychiatrists and psychologists, the present writers take a more extreme position. They discuss what they call "The medical model" in 13 pages and con¬ trast it with "The psychological model" to which they devote 46 pages. In discussing "the medical model" they criticize the concept of a disease under¬ lying the symptoms, not the dyadic relationship with