Abstract
This chapter describes the foundations of the first wave of behavior therapy: the assumptions, methods, and goals manifest in its systems, sciences, and practices. The first section offers a representative view of behavior therapy, along with some clarifications. The second section addresses behavior therapy’s foundations, organized by its long past (ca. 500 B.C.E.–1900), short history (ca. 1900–1950), recent origins (ca. 1950–1960), and institutional founding (ca. 1960–1970). The third section considers behavior therapy yesterday and today, describing its differences with the clinical traditions, within its own streams, and across the second and waves of Behavior Therapy. Some differences are complementary, some paradigmatic, and some contingent. The chapter concludes with come comments about the future of behavior therapy.
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Notes
- 1.
In 2005, AABT was renamed the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies. Behavior Therapy (est. 1970) remains its flagship journal.
- 2.
Waves and generations are different, of course. A wave is prototypic: a change in behavior therapy’s assumptions (e.g., philosophies), methods (e.g., research), and goals (e.g., in science and practice). A generation is demographic: a cohort of behavior therapy’s founders (e.g., the Greatest Generation, b. 1901–1927). More than one generation can participate in a wave; more than one wave can appear in a generation.
- 3.
Hayes (2004) was not the first to use a “waves” or “generations” historiography. Some behavior therapists have used two waves or generations; others have used three waves or generations (e.g., O’Donohue, 1998b; Plaud & Vogeltanz, 1997); and still others have used more (e.g., O’Donohue et al., 2001; O’Donohue & Krasner, 1995a). Most uses of the first, second, and third waves and generations, though, are the same, but not always (e.g., Hayes was a “second generation behavior therapist”; Plaud & Vogeltanz, 1997, p. 406).
- 4.
The distinction between behavior therapy’s long past and short history is borrowed from Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850–1909), who wrote: “Psychology has a long past, yet its real history is short” (Ebbinghaus, 1908, p. 3). E. G. Boring (1886–1968) made the distinction famous as: “Psychology has a long past, but only a short history” (Boring, 1929, p. vii).
- 5.
The past tense (e.g., “was not”) indicates behavior analysis in the history of behavior therapy. The present tense (e.g., “is not”) indicates behavior analysis today. This past-present distinction holds for other characteristics of behavior analysis and in other streams in behavior therapy, but will be assumed, not made, except as summary prompts (e.g., “includes”).
- 6.
On November 21, 2021, I emailed ABA International (mail@abainternational.org) asking about the year ABA became ABAI International. The ABAI Team replied: “When MABA changed to ABA, it was technically changed to ‘Association for Behavior Analysis: An International Organization.’ However, the first use of ‘ABAI’ is in the Inside Behavior Analysis newsletter, volume 26, issue 2, which was First [sic] printed in the fall of 2003. Use of ‘ABAI’ vs ‘ABA [sic] is a little inconsistent for a few years after that” (Personal communication, November 24, 2021).
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Morris, E.K. (2022). What Is First-Wave Behavior Therapy?. In: O'Donohue, W., Masuda, A. (eds) Behavior Therapy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11677-3_4
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