The Converging Paths of Behavior Therapy and Psychotherapy

Three disparate psychotherapeutic approaches—psychoanalytical, behavioral, and Rogerian—are shown to have more likenesses than differences. The relationship between patient and therapist and the conversational content are common. Techniques such as interpretation, counterconditioning (reciprocal inhibition), and the use or withholding of reward work in similar ways, despite different labels and rationales. Dictionary constructs of the past have done little to bridge differing theoretical assumptions; this has served to obscure understanding of common modalities.