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This book, one of a series of monographs called by the publisher, 'American Lectures in Living Chemistry', is a summary of the
work of those involved in behavior theory: Eysenck, Rachman, Wolpe, and others. Essentially the approach is to accept neurotic behavior as such, without concern for meaning. The etiology is explained by conditioning—that is, the connection in time between a so-called neutral stimulus and a painful, generally fearful reaction. According to the theory of conditioning, these 'anxiety reactions are subject to natural extinction' which accounts, the author states, for the large number of spontaneous remissions except in the cases that come for treatment where this has been prevented by the patient's avoidance of the noxious situation. The treatment, which goes back to the neglected work of Mrs. Jones in 1924 and 1925, is to inhibit the conditioned response by combining the fearful stimulus with an 'incompatible, antagonistic response'; soothing, affectionate feeding; a combination of muscular relaxation and what is called desensitization, recommended by the author. As 'desensitization' has evolved (developed by Wolpe as well as others in the field), it consists of muscular relaxation, imagining the fearful object or situation, followed by muscular relaxation meant to act as an inhibitory stimulus, and then onward to more vivid imagination. Both desensitization (dosed exposure) and the counteracting inhibitory stimulus are considered essential.
According to the author, this is a 'scientifically based therapy' because it leads to 'refinements of the techniques' and enables one 'to construct hypotheses on which to base further investigations'. These hypotheses are, first: 'Patients treated by means of therapeutic procedures based on learning theory improve significantly more quickly than do patients treated by other types of therapy', and second: 'Behavior therapy is able to achieve a higher rate of recovery than other types of therapy'.
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