Re-evaluation of Wolpe and Dollard/Miller

The major inadequacy in both Wolpe's and Dollard and Miller's learning-theory approach to therapy, is an oversimplified view of “stimulus” and “response”. Dollard and Miller's analysis of conventional psychotherapy accurately reflects the heavy emphasis on verbal mediation of emotional and instrumental responses in psychotherapy. Wolpe's work, on the other hand, belongs to a different tradition: his techniques involve direct intervention, by a variety of means, into the behaviour patterns to be eliminated, and direct training of new behaviour patterns. The debate over the relative merits of verbal versus non-verbal approaches to therapy has been confounded by a debate over ethical or philosophical attitudes.