A report on behavior therapy with outpatient clinic patients

Abstract

This is a brief report of the application, combining operant and respondent approaches, of behavior therapy to eight psychiatric patients treated in an outpatient clinic. Psychiatric residents and the writer, as therapists and supervisor, achieved the following most encouraging results:

(1) An impotent man regained his sexual potency. (2) A homosexual man stopped the practice for at least 14 months, during which time he began to attempt heterosexual activity. (3) A woman who had feared pelvic examination apparently lost her fear. (4) A woman who feared drinking tea and eating in social situations has practically eliminated this fear. (5) A bald woman, who had pulled her hair out for over a decade, stopped pulling and grew a full head of hair. (6) A woman who had compulsively washed her hands reduced her washing frequency.

Balanced against these obvious and dramatic “successes” are two relative “failures”:

(7) An adolescent hair puller reduced her pulling behavior, but was still bald several months after treatment had started. (8) A compulsive hand-washer, who had been diagnosed as a “paranoid schizophrenic,” left therapy after four sessions.