This investigation was designed to evaluate the utility of a behaviour therapy programme provided on an outpatient basis for the management of chronic pain. Twenty-eight chronic pain patients were randomly assigned to one of three groups. The first group served as a waiting-list control and had minimal contact with the clinic during the study, while the second group received the regular treatment regime provided by the rehabilitation clinic. The behaviour therapy group also received some of the regular treatment techniques offered by the clinic, but in addition, these patients were given: (1) training in applied relaxation (coping) to control the pain, and (2) an operant activities programme to increase relevant activities at home. Results indicated that the behaviour therapy group had significantly greater reductions in pain than the other two groups, and moreover, the behaviour therapy group had the best results for variables of sleep, activity and medication levels. These findings suggest that applied relaxation and an activities training programme may be valuable tools for the remediation of chronic pain.

Staff training placements for psychologists and social workers at the Anson House Preschool Project, a service-research facility at the Hester Adrian Research Centre are described. The placements involved working in an interdisciplinary team with an integrated group of handicapped and non-handicapped children. Part of the training included the acquisition of behavioural skills which were taught through a microteaching model with the emphasis on the enactive mode of learning. The effectiveness of this training was evaluated through written and practical procedures. Significant improvements were found on all evaluation procedures from pre-test to post-test. However, trainees who scored highly on one procedure did not necessarily show high scores on the other procedures relative to the other trainees, except on post-test scores. A ceiling effect was noted on the practical procedures, the better the trainees scored initially the smaller the percentage gain made from pre-test to post-test. No significant differences emerged between social workers and psychologists.

In order to test its effect on compliance with recommended practice of relaxation training, patients in anxiety management training groups were provided with additional information about the procedure and its rationale. After an introductory training session all subjects were provided with audiotaped relaxation instructions to use for three weeks until the second group meeting. Additional information was provided either as an audiotaped message at the end of the relaxation instructions (“Message”) or as a printed leaflet (“Leaflet”). In a 2 × 2 factorial experiment 32 subjects were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: (1) Message, (2) Leaflet, (3) Message and Leaflet, (4) Basic Programme alone. Neither manipulation had an effect on self-reported frequency of practice during the three weeks (which was high), but both increased subjects' knowledge of the treatment and also their satisfaction with it. Subjects receiving the message were significantly less likely to drop out of treatment during the remainder of the 16-weeks group programme. Compliance was predicted by subjects' perceptions of the severity of their condition but not by their knowledge, satisfaction or state anxiety.

This article presents an examination of 17 empirical studies of the in-service training of psychiatric and mental handicap nurses in behaviour therapy. Particular attention is given to subject characteristics, training methods, course content and evaluation. It is concluded that the integrity of both independent and dependent variables in this literature is suspect, and that it may therefore be premature to consider abandoning nurse training as a vehicle of institutional change. In contrast, what is needed are more systematic investigations, especially those which relate training interventions to institutional constraints, since both variables appear to be necessary conditions for successful innovations in patient care.

The effectiveness of brief treatment via assertiveness training and exposure in vivo was evaluated in a crossover study of eight agoraphobics. Exposure treatment brought short-term benefit as assessed by phobia questionnaires and a depression inventory, but assertiveness training did not. Conversely, assertiveness training produced short-term improvements as measured by an assertiveness inventory, while exposure treatment did not. Both treatments were relevant to the problems of our client sample, but they had specific effects on measures closely related to each treatment's target, consistent with the results of a similar recent study by Emmelkamp et al. (1983). At six-month follow-up assessment, phobia questionnaire scores were unchanged from post-treatment assessment, but assertion scores had reverted to pre-treatment levels. In addition, five untreated agoraphobics completed phobia questionnaires on two occasions, six months apart. In a quasi-experiment, their scores on the two occasions were compared with treated clients' pre- and post-treatment scores. Treated clients showed significantly greater improvement, demonstrating the sensitivity of the questionnaires to treatment effects.

A child's ability to attend selectively to stimuli is central to the learning process. The length of time for which a child will attend (the child's attention span) is of equal importance. In general, mentally handicapped children have exteremly short attention spans. This study reviews the relevant literature and describes in detail an operant procedure designed to increase the attention spans of five mentally handicapped children, using parents as agents of change.

All parents were successful and the resulting increase was statistically significant. Short term follow up indicated that any increase in attention span may well be reduced if the procedure is discontinued, thought subsequent attendances at a nursery school appeared to maintain the gains achieved by the intervention process.

The effects of applied relaxation and stress-inoculation respectively were tested in an A–B design for one patient with panic disorder and one with generalized anxiety disorder. The treatments took 13 and 12 sessions respectively, and both patients were improved to a large extent as assessed by self-report, self-observation and physiological measures. The improvements were sustained or furthered at the one-year follow-up.

Persistent night-time disturbance in a small dog was treated by extinction. The difficulties of carrying out the programme, which in this case necessitated the use of an associate therapist, are discussed. Although a reversal design was not employed and therefore contingency control could not be indisputably demonstrated, the programme was judged to have been successful.