Behavior Therapy, the Principles of Conditioning and the Treatment of the Alcoholic

Abstract

The advantages of behavior therapy lie not so much in its yet to be adequately established therapeutic superiority over psycho-dynamic procedures as in its methodological rigor. On the more practical level it appears to be less time consuming, more goal directed and more widely applicable than psychotherapy. Many attempts have been made to develop a unifying concept which can account for individual differences in the efficiency of functioning of the nervous system. The present formulation is adapted from the concepts of Eysenck, Pavlov and Hull. Stimulant drugs or the presence of certain personality types facilitate the formation and retention of conditioned responses whereas depressant drugs (including alcohol), certain forms of brain damage or the presence of different personality types appear to have the opposite effects. The properties of apomorphine and emetine hydrochloride, among other nauseants, are considered in terms of these and other respects. To be optimally effective, conditioned aversion therapy must be planned and executed in accordance with the known principles of conditioning and learning and the effects of various drugs on these processes.