Contemporary behavior therapy encompasses diverse conceptual positions,
clinical and applied problems, and intervention techniques. Behavior
therapy has spread to several disciplines to provide substantive
concepts and procedures as well as methodological tenets regarding how
intervention techniques are to be evaluated. The proliferation of
behavior therapy research has produced a plethora of texts. Typically
texts review the history of particular treatments and detail
contemporary advances. The historical underpinnings are often emphasized
with the heavily labored view that in order to understand where one is
going, it is important to understand where one has been. To be sure,
historical roots of behavior therapy are important to document. However,
a given history might have many different outcomes. Similarly, the
current status of par- ticular areas is frequently reviewed. Sometimes
the number of reviews seems to approach or exceed the number of sound
studies that there are to be reviewed. A review of current work is
obviously essential but leaves open major questions of where the work
will all lead. A valuable addition to ex- isting reviews would be
information that points in a prescriptive or explicit way to areas that
are likely to be important in future work. The present book is unique in
its approach and focus. Brief reviews of contemporary advances are
provided in diverse areas of behavior therapy and serve as a point of
departure to chart emerging trends and future direc- tions.