Theories of Learning and the Psychotherapeutic Process

Abstract

In a number of previous communications (10, 11, 12) I have advanced the thesis that in successful psychotherapy what goes on is a unique kind of learning process in which the therapist employs his particular theoretical frame of reference as a rational basis for explaining the patient's past and present difficulties, and by non-verbal as well as verbal cues uses the instrument of a warm empathic human relationship as a means of helping the patient to persist in the difficult task of combating his anxieties, overcoming his resistance to change, and learning more mature patterns of adaptation. This underlying modus operandi is essentially the same in different “schools” of dynamic psychiatry, despite their ideological variations. In the present communication I propose to outline some of the significant areas in which the findings from learning theory experiments are applicable to what goes on in psychotherapy.