Behavior therapy is placed as one of the most important psychologic therapies in psychosomatic field at present Behavior therapy, catching hold of maladaptive behavior as an erroneously learned or a conversional behavior due to insufficiently learned adaptive behavior, is to extinct the erroneously learned maladaptive behavior and make the patient learn correct adaptive behavior. The following have been known to be the therapeutic technics: implosive therapy, extinction therapy, inhibition of ideas, aversive therapy, conditional inhibition therapy and assertion training as technics. of behavioral abnormalities, in addition to classical conditioning therapies, operant conditioning therapies, systematic desensitization. and furthermore, biofeedback technic has also been employed. In this article, the author will describe historical changes in the behavior therapies used in psychosomatic field in Japan, along with the outlook of the therapies. The reported target diseases of the behavior therapies in psychosomatic field in Japan comprise hypertension and Raynaud's disease as cardiovascular psychosomatic diseases, anorexia nervosa as a gastrointestinal psychosomatic disease, writer's spasm. spasmodic wryneck, muscle contraction headache, migraine and labial involuntary movement as neuromuscular psychosomatic diseases, obesity as an endocrine and metabolic psychosomatic disease, and bronchial asthma as a respiratory psychosomatic disease in internal medicine; infantile bronchial asthma, refusal of attending school and tic in pediatrics; enuresis and ejaculation insufficiency in urology; aphasia and psychogenic dysphonia in otorhinology; habit of pulling out of the hair in dermatology; psychogenic visual disturbances and hysteric blindness in ophthalmology, and also pain and phobias. The technics favored for the treatment of such diseases are operant conditioning therapies, systematic desensitization, aversive therapy, token economy, assertive reaction, squeeze technic, modeling therapy, feedback therapy (GSR, respiration, blood pressure, electromyogram, skin temperature). Systematic classification of the cases heretofore treated with the behavior therapies in Japan indicates that the behavior therapies for psychosomatic diseases began in 1975. In other words, the history of the therapies is still relatively short, and it may be anticipated that the therapies will further develop in the future. In the current social situations with a presumably increasing incidence of psychosomatic diseases, the behavior therapies willl further develop, and prove more effective when used in combination with other psychologic therapies. In the clinical treatment of such diseases, however, it is an essential treatment ground to establish desirable human relations between the therapist and the patient by a verbal means, and based on it, it is desirable to develop therapies incorporating the role of modifying an emotionless tendency liable to associate psychosomatic diseases.
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