Handbook of Clinical Behavior Therapy with Adults

Book excerpt: Despite the occasional outcries to the contrary, the field of behavior therapy is still growing, and the asymptote has not been reached yet. The umbrella of behavior therapy continues to enlarge and still is able to encompass new theories, new con cepts, new research, new data, and new clinical techniques. Although the number of new behavioral journals now has stabilized, we still see a proliferation of books on the subject. In the past few years, however, we have seen considerable specialization within behavior therapy. No longer is it possible to be a generalist and remain fully abreast of all the relevant developments. Thus, we see behavior therapists who deal with adults, those who deal with children, those whose specialty is hospital psychiatry, and those who see themselves as practitioners of behavioral medicine. Even within a subarea such as behavioral medicine, specialization runs supreme to the extent that there are experts in the specific addictions, adult medical problems, and child medical problems. Given the extent of specialization, there are numerous ways "to skin" the pro verbial "cat." We therefore have chosen to look at the contemporary work in behavior therapy that is being carried out with adults, in part, of course, because of our long-standing interest in this area as teachers, researchers, and clinicians. In so doing, we have chosen to highlight the clinical aspects of the endeavor but not at the expense of the rich research heritage for each of the specific adult disorders.