Behavior therapy for asthma: a review

The paper reviews 24 case studies and experiments which assess behavior therapy for asthma or some collateral behavior management problem. The reports are examined in terms of treatment population, design, dependent variable, technique, outcome, and follow-up. Methodological and instrumentation suggestions are made for future research.     

Electrical aversion therapy with alcoholics: An analogue study

Chronic alcoholic patients matched on age, education and length of problem drinking were assigned to one of three treatment conditions, with 10 subjects in each group: (1) Electrical Aversion Conditioning (high shock paired with alcohol sips); (2) Control Conditioning (very low shock paired with alcohol sips); and (3) Group Therapy (confrontation psychotherapy). Groups 2 and 3 were included to control for possible ‘attention-placebo’ and expectancy factors involved in the conditioning procedures. Subjects in each group were given instructions designed to produce high expectancy for therapeutic success. Pre-post measures of alcohol consumption and attitudes toward alcohol were obtained using an analogue ‘taste test’ assessment procedure. No statistically significant differences in reduced alcohol consumption or attitudes toward alcohol were found among the groups. Trends in the data support the contention that effects of electrical aversion may be more related to such factors as therapeutic instructions, expectancy, specificity of the procedure or experimental demand characteristics than to conditioning factors.     

Nonspecific elements in therapy with stutterers

Currently, many different strategies are employed by respected professionals working in the area of therapy for persons who stutter. This phenomenon serves as a point of departure for reflections on the nonspecific elements involved in therapy. Drawing on the literature of holistic medicine and psychotherapy these elements are identified as follows: (1) active participation of the client in the therapy process; (2) role of self-management skills; (3) influence of client's expectations regarding treatment; (4) suggestion as a factor in therapy; and (5) the therapeutic relationship.     

Message therapy: Language approach to stuttering therapy with children

Message therapy is a clinical procedure designed to be used as a carry-over technique with school-age stutterers or as a sole technique with the preschooler. The focus of therapy is on a unit of communication rather than on the moment or place of stuttering. One of the basic assumptions of the procedure is that the child is beginning to monitor how he/she is speaking rather than what is being communicated (i.e., the “message”)—each task requiring a different cognitive process. The emphasis of the therapy is to redirect the child's attention to “what he/she is saying.” The clinical procedures are discussed as they relate to the specific population.     

A comparison of the Probe technique and conventional therapy for young stutterers

This study contrasted the gains made in speech theraphy by 39 stutterers, 15 of whom were treated by conventional methods and 24 by the Probe technique. It was found that the Probe technique yielded substantially greater gains in fluency than did the conventional method, having more influence on final performance than factors such as initial fluency, time since onset of stuttering, or the presence of other unacceptable behaviors.     

Individualized behavior therapy for alcoholics: a third year independent double-blind follow-up.

An independently conducted double-blind study providing third year follow-up data for 53 of 70 male alcoholics who served as subjects in an experiment evaluating “Individualized Behavior Therapy (IBT)” techniques is reported. In the original study, subjects were initially assigned to either a controlled drinking or non-drinking (abstinence) treatment goal, and were then randomly assigned to either an experimental group receiving IBT or a control group receiving conventional state hospital treatment oriented towards abstinence. Previously reported results showed that IBT subjects functioned significantly better than control subjects throughout the first year of follow-up. Second year follow-up results found that IBT subjects treated with a controlled drinking goal functioned significantly better than their respective control subjects on a variety of measures, including drinking behavior. Differences between IBT subjects treated with a non-drinking goal and their control subjects did not retain statistical significance during the second year of follow-up. The independently determined follow-up data showed that during the third post-treatment year, subjects in the experimental groups generally functioned better than their respective control subjects. Comparison of the controlled drinking experimental group with its control group showed the significantly better functioning of subjects in the experimental condition on a number of drinking and other life functioning measures. Comparison of the non-drinking groups indicated only one possible difference on the drinking related measures involving a trend for subjects in the experimental condition to abstain more than those in the non-drinker control group. On other life functioning measures, however, subjects in the non-drinking experimental condition showed consistent improvement over their respective control subjects. Both of the controlled drinking groups reported more controlled drinking days than the non-drinking groups throughout the third year follow-up period.     

A within-subject analysis of stimulus control therapy with severe sleep-onset insomnia.

Stimulus control, a behavioral technique designed to reduce sleep difficulties, has been demonstrated to be effective when compared with control procedures. These comparisons, mainly involving between-subjects analyses, have neglected the contribution of the stimulus control procedure to the production of clinically significant amelioration of sleep dysfunction. In contrast, the present within-subjects experiment was conducted to assess the capability of stimulus control to produce clinically relevant reductions in multiple measures of sleep disturbance. A comparison with the credible placebo procedure indicated that the stimulus control techniques reduced subjects' sleep onset latency to a mean latency below 30 min per week. Additionally, sedative-hypnotic usage was greatly reduced.