Clinicians faced with the problem of finding the most effective treatment of individual patients often express disappointment and frustration when turning to the research literature for guidance. Treatments and measures reported are often standardised, may be carried out for a fixed period irrespective of response, and use atypical - even ‘analogue’ populations, while variables of most clinical interest - such as individual differences - are symbolically relegated to the error term of the ANOVA. One reaction to this is to dismiss the experimental method as irrelevant to clinical problems, usually in favour of intuition in one guise or another, as a more satisfying and creative activity. It is unfortunately true that rigorous experiment is no guarantee of rapid success in generating valid theory or successful application in the clinic - however it is the only available route to cumulative progress. To utilise it most effectively requires both awareness of relevant clinical questions by the research worker, and willingness to utilise experimental or ‘quasi-experimental’ (Campbell & Stanley, 1966) methods on the part of the clinician, rather than to retreat to the non-experimental and untestable position of the pre-scientific psychotherapists.

An important aim of the B.A.B.P. is to stimulate training programmes among the disciplines from whose ranks it draws its members. At least three big issues affect the kinds of training programmes which may be desirable. The first is the clinical setting in which the behavioural psychotherapy is to be practised, e.g. is the work going to be primarily with subnormal children, or with adult neurotics? While there are certain common therapeutic principles which can be generalised across most settings, skilled behavioural psychotherapy also requires detailed and expert knowledge of the particular clinical problems concerned. Those who have worked with adult neurotics may know very little about subnormals, and vice versa: A practitioner thus requires good experience of the clinical area involved. Recognition of the fact that different areas need differential training is attested by the separate trainings which the nursing and psychiatric professions offer for subnormality and for general psychiatry.

British nursing has the honour of being the first profession to produce a nationally recognised syllabus in behavioural psychotherapy. This notable event is signalled by the approval of an 18-month course for the training of nurse-therapists in adult behavioural psychotherapy (course No. 650) by the Joint Board of Clinical Nursing Studies, which is responsible for post-certificate training of nurses in England and Wales. Some details of the syllabus appear in the appendix. The appearance of this course was the culmination of a three-year operational research program funded by the D.H.S.S. at the Maudsley Hospital. During that project a psychiatrist and psychologist trained five R.M.N. qualified nurses to become full-time therapists. In a final year of the program the trained nurse-therapists were seconded to four hospitals in the London area and to a General Practice Health Centre to see whether their therapeutic skills transferred to work in a new setting - they did.