The development of behavioral therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy is closely related to the overall development of psychotherapy in China. This paper starts with a brief introduction of the development of psychotherapy in China, followed with a description of the development and status of behavioral therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy in China and the impacts of Eastern ideology and philosophy on these types of therapies. It also reveals the problems existing in this field and suggests directions for future developments.

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The focus of this article was on providing updates on the neurocircuitry of anxiety disorder, partly with the aim of providing a clinical foundation for approaching the symptoms and cognitive-behavioral therapy of these conditions. Both animal and clinical studies indicate that the amygdala and paralimbic structures play an important role in conditioned fear, and hyperactivation of the limbic system is characteristic of a number of different anxiety disorders. Paralimbic regions such as anterior cingulate appears to play a key role in the interface of cognition and emotion. In addition, cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical pathways may be important in anxiety disorders, particularly in OCD. Treatment, which focused on reversing the effects of fear conditioning on psychological, somatic and behavioral symptoms associated with the efferent arm of the anxiety circuit, has been shown to be effective. The various psychotherapies target the cortical components and the explicit memory systems of the hippocampus and implicit memory of the amygdala. Behavioural therapies such as systematic desensitization or exposure produce "deconditioning", which works mainly on the implicit memory system (amygdala) and follow by retraining hippocampal neurons to reorganize the contextual cues that they store, so that they are no longer associated with danger signal and no longer produce the fear conditioning response. Cognitive therapy or other "speaking psychotherapies", in which the contextual memories are explored, may attack the same problem from the cortical level, mainly in temporal and prefrontal areas. Cognitive-behavioral therapies have been designed to reverse the impact of fear conditioning from both cortical and limbic perspectives.

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The effects of distraction on cold-pressor pain were examined in light of the limited capacity model and response expectancy hypothesis. Thirty participants were randomly as-signed to High-Distraction (HD) group, Low-Distraction (LD) group and control group. All participants completed a three-trial session. In each trial, they were required to immerse their hand in 10℃ water for 48 s. In the second and third trials, participants in HD engaged in a task adding up three one-digit numbers every 3 s. Participants in LD performed a simple judgment task every 6 s. No cognitive tasks were assigned to the control group. Results showed that the degree of concentration on cognitive tasks influenced both subjective pain and unpleasantness, but the perceived difficulty of cognitive tasks did not influence these variables. The degree of expected unpleasantness predicted subjective, on-line rated unpleasantness.

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The purpose of this study was to develop and validate the cognitive behavioral model for children's anxiety symptoms. In Study I, participants were 546 elementary school children. Results of partial correlation analysis between the cognitive variables and anxiety symptoms controlling for stressor indicated that the cognitive variables were associated with anxiety symptoms. But results of partial correlation analysis between the stressors and anxiety symptoms controlling for the cognitive variables revealed that there were no correlations for many of the pairs of subscales. In Study II, participants were 550 elementary school children. As a result of the covariance structure analysis, the cognitive behavioral model of anxiety in children was supported. In the model, "stressor of friends" and "stressor of academics" affect "cognitive error." Next, "cognitive error" affects "negative self-statement," and "negative self-statement" affects "anxiety disorder tendency." Finally, "anxiety disorder tendency" affects five anxiety subscales: "separation anxiety," "panic tendency," "worry," "specific phobia," and "obsessive-compulsive tendency." Results of this study showed that extraneous influence like stressor affects the figuration of negative cognitions, which in turn affects anxiety symptoms directly. Therefore, results of this study suggested that modifying children's cognitions would improve their anxiety symptoms.

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The purpose of this study was to develop the Dysfunctional Attitudes Inventory for Children (DAIC), and to examine the effects of dysfunctional attitudes on depression and anxiety in elementary school children. In study I, factor analysis using the data of 451 children from grades 4 to 6 was conducted. Two factors were identified: catastrophic/hopeless attitude, and praise/approval seeking attitude. It was also demonstrated that DAIC had moderate reliability and validity. In study II, results of a series of analysis using the data of 617 elementary school children revealed that catastrophic/hopeless attitude predicted the levels of both depressive and anxious symptomatologies. On the other hand, praise/approval seeking attitude predicted only anxiety and not depression. Finally, implications for using the cognitive-behavioral approach in modifying dysfunctional attitudes were discussed.

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