Behaviour Therapy in the Treatment of Psychoneurosis

¹ Consultant Psychiatrist, Crumpsall Hospital, Manchester, 8.
² Medical Hypnotist, Department of Psychiatry, Crumpsall Hospital, Manchester, 8.

A considerable advance has been made in psychiatric treatment with the advent of behaviour therapy. It seems appropriate to clarify the compass of this treatment in order to define the premises from which its advocates may advance their claims. Delineation is also necessary so that the semantic misunderstandings which have in the past bedevilled psychiatric discussions, shall not be perpetuated. If, as has been claimed, all types of neuroses are being treated, we believe that behaviour therapists can no more dispense with consideration of underlying psychogenic factors, or with interpersonal relations between patient and therapist, than practitioners of other disciplines. Though the language in which these concepts are framed is different, we suspect that some of the techniques are not far removed from traditional psychotherapy. This is a conclusion which concurs with that reached by Meyer and Gelder (1963).

It is felt that motivation receives insufficient emphasis by the exponents of behaviour therapy.

Conditioned symptoms play a role of varying importance in psychoneurotic illness, and we believe that conditioning therapies should be applied to a greater or lesser extent according to the individual's clinical needs.