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influences modern psychodynamic psychotherapy, which is typically shorter in duration, less frequent, and involves the client sitting up and talking to the therapist. The more active therapist is likely to point out and interpret relevant associations and help the client uncover unresolved conflict more directly to gain insight into the problem and work through feelings. Although psychodynamic therapists think that anxieties are rooted in past experiences, they do not necessarily assume the problems arose in infancy and early childhood.

Even shorter interpersonal psychotherapy aims to enable people to gain insight into the causes of their problems, but it focuses on current relations to relieve present symptoms.

Humanistic Therapies

Humanistic therapies include client-centered or person-centered therapies, and Gestalt therapy. Humanists think that problems arise because the client’s inherent goodness and potential to grow emotionally have been stifled by external psychosocial constraints. The goal of client-centered therapy is to provide an atmosphere of acceptance (unconditional positive regard), understanding (empathy), and sharing that permits the client’s inner strength and qualities to surface so that personal growth can occur and problems can be eliminated, ultimately resulting in self-actualization. According to humanist Carl Rogers, the greater the difference between the ideal self and the real self, the greater the problems of the client. His emphasis on developing a more positive self-concept through unconditional positive regard, active listening, and showing both sensitivity and genuineness is a central focus of nondirective, Rogerian psychotherapy. Nondirective therapy encourages the client to take the lead in determining the direction of therapy. Rogers’s technique of active listening involves echoing, restating, and seeking clarification of what the client says and does, and acknowledging feelings.

Influenced by Gestalt psychology, which emphasized that people organize their view of the world to make meaning, psychoanalyst Fritz Perls said that people create their own reality and continue to grow psychologically only as long as they perceive, stay aware of, and act on their true feelings. He developed Gestalt therapy. The therapist’s goal is to push clients to decide whether they will allow past conflicts to control their future or whether they will choose right now to take control of their own destiny. In contrast to client-centered therapy, Gestalt therapists are directive in questioning and challenge clients to help them become aware of their feelings and problems, and to discard feelings and values that are not their own. Similar to psychoanalysts, Gestalt therapists use dream interpretation to help the client gain a better understanding of the whole self. Through role playing, the therapist gets the client to express his/her true feelings. Like other humanistic therapies, the emphasis is on present behavior, feelings, and thoughts to get the client aware of how these factors interact to affect his/her whole being.

Insight therapies have been demonstrated to be effective for treating eating disorders, depression, and marital discord.

Behavioral Approaches

B. F. Skinner and other behaviorists discount the insight therapies. To Skinner, abnormal behavior is a result of maladaptive behavior learned through faulty rewards and punishment. The goal of behavior therapy is to extinguish unwanted behavior and replace it with more adaptive behavior. Therapies are based on the learning principles of classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational or social learning theory.

Classical Conditioning Therapies

After Watson conditioned Baby Albert to fear a rat, he planned to remove the fear but Albert was taken away. Soon thereafter, Mary Cover Jones worked with a young child who feared white rabbits, rats, and similar stimuli. Over several months, she gradually introduced a rabbit closer and closer to the child while he ate and played. The boy’s fear was gradually eliminated. Joseph Wolpe dubbed