Description of the Strategy

The term behavior therapy is said to have been coined by Hans Eysenck in 1952. The term, intended as a means of describing therapeutic strategies derived from learning theory, did not come into widespread usage until the late 1950s. Joseph Wolpe later defined behavior therapy as the systematic application of principles derived from learning theory to the rational modification of abnormal or undesirable behavior. In the most inclusive sense, behavior refers to both overt (directly observable) and covert (cognition, emotion, and physiological) responses. Behavior therapy encompasses a vast rubric of techniques designed to modify behavior—perhaps the most widely recognized of which being relaxation training, systematic desensitization, extinction, modeling, and contingency management. Although there has been debate among certain authors, ...