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Essay on Joseph Wolpe
Wolpe, a psychiatrist, had become disenchanted with the Freudian view of neurotic problems. In exploring alternative approaches, he was influenced by previous research on the production of experimental neuroses in animals. At the time, the major hypotheses to account for such neurotic phenomena were those of the Pavlov School and of Masserman. The former attributed the neurotic behavior to damage which the nervous system had sustained as a result of a clash between excitation and inhibition. The latter stressed the importance of conflict between two or more motivations. Wolpe (1958), in contrast, proposed that the symptoms of experimental neurosis were learned anxiety reactions which, as a result of their pairing with noxious stimulation, had become classically conditioned to originally neutral stimuli.
To test his hypothesis, Wolpe compared the effect of subjecting cats to electric shocks under two conditions. The first group were simply placed in an experimental cage and received intense electric shocks, immediately preceded by an auditory signal. Under Wolpe's hypothesis, these conditions should be sufficient to produce experimental neurosis. The second group were subjected to a procedure similar to that used by Masserman. They were first trained to approach a food box in the experimental cage on receipt of an auditory stimulus that signaled the delivery of food. They then were put into a state of conflict by shocking them as they approached the food box after the signal had sounded.
The symptoms of experimental neurosis produced were essentially similar in two groups, and this finding supported Wolpe's notion that the neurosis was simply the result of classical conditioning of anxiety to the signal, experimental cage, etc. If the symptoms were learned, it was natural next to explore methods of "therapy" by which they might be unlearned.
Wolpe examined three methods of treatment. In the first, the animal was fed by hand in the experimental cage....
