Author Description

The first issue of Behaviour Research and Therapy (BRAT) appeared in 1962. This collection of outstanding articles from the journal, defining the development of behaviour therapy since the journal's launch, has been put together to celebrate thirty five years of publication. The selections cover three main areas: Theory, Methods and Treatment. Articles that were topical ten or twenty years ago but have been superseded by new collections of facts were not chosen. Hence, the many articles on the treatment of phobias were omitted, as were treatment outcome trials that are without historical interest, and ideas/methods that failed (e.g. aversion therapy). Instead, six papers on theory are included: Professor Eysenck's statement of his theory of neurosis, Clark's heavily quoted landmark paper on the cognitive theory of panic, the correspondingly important paper on OCD by Salkovskis, Teasdale on depression, Philips on a cognitive view of pain, and a model of emotional processing. From a wide range of papers on method, two stand out because of their widespread adoption (in modified forms)―Freund's plethysmographic method and Velten's mood-induction technique. On the treatment side, preference has been given to innovative techniques such as Vic Meyer's treatment of OCD, Fordyce on pain control, Azrin on habit reversal, Turk on cancer pain and new approaches to the treatment of bulimia and of bereavement.