Behavioural Marital Therapy (BMT) has undergone significant changes over the last fifteen years. Empirical data supports its efficacy yet there has been widespread criticisms of the approach. Integrative behavioural models have been developed in response to some of these criticisms but the question remains as to the efficacy of these new behavioural innovations. This paper gives an account of the current status of BMT and details the new treatment extensions.

Correctly construed, the concept of intervention requires that active consideration be given to the mechanisms by which any behaviour change produced by an intervention procedure may subsequently be generalized—across settings, across behaviours and, particularly, across time. Broad strategies that have been adopted with the aim of fostering generalization are reviewed. These may be seen to define a continuum along which scope for engineering behaviour change is “traded” with the probability of the contingencies required to maintain this change being assimilated within the “post-intervention” environment. Viewing strategies in this manner prompts consideration of interventions representing the extreme of this continuum, where scope for engineering change is minimal, but the probability of maintaining any change produced is very high. The implications of adopting such “minimal interventions” are examined, and these strategies shown to have some empirical support. A broad structure for implementing “minimal interventions” is proposed.

A multiple linear regression analysis was made on behavioral, questionnaire and other data from 40 agoraphobic patients, who participated in a behavioral outcome study. The dependent variable was treatment outcome as determined by changes in behavioral, subjective and physiological data after treatment and at 7-month and 15-month follow-up. The main predictors of outcome were self-rated anxiety and heart-rate at a behavioral test, and scores on the Autonomic Perception Questionnaire and Fear Survey Schedule-III, all related to the phobia. However, both level of depression and marital relationship were found to be weak predictors.

This article reports a longitudinal study of the psychophysiological responses of a schizophrenic patient towards his parents, in relation to their Expressed Emotion status. Recordings were taken during periods of relapse and remission. The results are discussed in the context of environmental and vulnerability factors affecting the illness.

Three experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of teaching chronic schizophrenic patients to verbally regulate their own behaviour by means of self-instructional training. In Experiment 1, self-instructional training on a short-term memory task produced improvements in performance which did not generalize to a second memory task. In Experiment 2 an attempt to enhance generalization by teaching a rehearsal strategy on two different memory tasks produced improvements of performance only on those new tasks that were similar to the teaching tasks. The third experiment compared task-specific and general problem solving self-instructions and showed no differences in the effectiveness of the two methods. Some of the difficulties encountered when teaching self-instructions to the subjects, together with the failure to produce adequate generalization of treatment effects, leave the clinical utility of the procedure uncertain. Before a practical cognitive therapy for chronic schizophrenics can be developed it will be necessary to explore more fully the relationships that exist between the verbal and non-verbal behaviour of these patients.