Wolpe (Resumen Libro)

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BOOK REVIEWS 183

Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences: Vol. 33(2), 183 – 184 Spring 1997
© 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. CCC 0022-5061/97/020183-02
Roger Poppen. Joseph Wolpe. London: Sage Publications, 1995, 225 pp. $18.95 (paper)
This book is one of a series of biographies on Key Figures in Counselling and Psy-
chotherapy. The aim is to provide a “concise and accessible” introduction to the life and
work of behavior therapist Joseph Wolpe. Wolpe, who began his psychiatric career at the
Kimberely military hospital in South Africa during World War II, pioneered the application
of learning principles to the treatment of anxiety and other disorders. He is best known as
one of the leading figures in the behavior therapy movement. And, as Roger Poppen portrays
it, Wolpe’s antagonism towards psychoanalysis has defined his work almost as clearly as his
commitment to behavior therapy.
These two ideas — Wolpe’s development of behavior therapy and his antagonism to-
wards psychoanalysis — provide the respective manifest and latent themes of the book. The
former makes up the bulk of the biography, providing a good picture of Wolpe’s research as
it developed in the context of others doing similar work. But the latter theme, though it takes
up less room, is the thorn in the book’s side. Wolpe actually began his career (like most psy-
chiatrists in World War II) adhering to Freudian principles. His emergent behavior therapy
was a reaction against the “religious mysticism” of psychoanalytic constructs and against
what he saw as the “unscientific” methods of psychoanalytic research. Poppen (who is a fol-
lower of Wolpe) polemically highlights throughout the book the oppressive psychoanalytic
climate in which Wolpe was forced to defend himself. There is no question that this book is
a defense of Wolpe. Had Poppen made this agenda more overt, then the book might have
packed a strong, if partisan, punch. But his partisanship seems to have seeped into what was
otherwise supposed to be, by all accounts, a simple “introduction” to Wolpe’s work.
Poppen’s book, nonetheless, is a good encyclopedia of Wolpe’s work, providing ex-
cruciating detail about his emergent theory, techniques, and institutional affiliations. He
delineates well some of the fundamental tenets of behavior therapy that Wolpe con-
tributed: reciprocal inhibition, systematic desensitization, hierarchy construction, anxiety
as learned response. As the first formal biography of Wolpe it distinguishes them clearly
from those contributions of his former student, Arnold Lazarus, and others such as
Skinner and Bandura. Poppen’s diligent exposition of the breadth and depth of Wolpe’s
work is admirable.
The overall effect of the book, however, is weak. Poppen provides no compelling argu-
ment about Wolpe apart from their shared desire to fight the good fight against psychoanaly-
sis. Part of the difficulty is the way in which he has organized the material. The series editor,
Windy Dryden, has prescribed a format for presenting the material which is useful for text-
book introductions but which hinders the development of a critical biographical argument.
This book is a helpful and informative introduction to Wolpe’s work in keeping with the aim
of the series. Beyond that, however, Poppen’s biography sheds little light on Wolpe’s theoret-
ical and institutional context apart from the ongoing partisanship that drives them both and
that has defined psychotherapy for the last quarter century.
Reviewed by Rachael Rosner, graduate student in Clinical Psychology and

History/Theory of Psychology, York University, North York, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3.
Professor Poppen responds:

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184 BOOK REVIEWS
The book proposes that Wolpe’s persistent promotion of his theories and procedures
were a critical feature for a psychotherapy revolution. Readers who are favorably disposed
toward his enterprise will likely find the book pleasing; those opposed will not.
In the present case, statements of my professional training and affiliations make it clear
I am a member of the behavioral camp. Within the behavioral field, as the book describes,
there are many who disagreed, often acrimoniously, with Wolpe. Personally, I have concep-
tual and practical differences with Wolpe but I tried not to use the book as a forum to state
my case; rather, I described the criticisms of eminent researchers and clinicians, along with
Wolpe’s replies. The reviewer describes my efforts in this regard as “clear,” “diligent,” and
“admirable.”
The book also presents Wolpe’s struggles with the psychoanalytically-oriented psychi-
atric establishment. It is here that the reviewer sees partisanship as problematic. My covertly
joining his opposition is a “thorn in the book’s side” and weakens its overall effect. Given
my behavioral background, it should come as no surprise that I would take Wolpe’s side in
this controversy. From her focus on this aspect of the book, and use of terms like “manifest
and latent themes,” one may surmise that the reviewer is a partisan on the side of psycho-
analysis and therefore finds the book unappealing. Further evidence of the role of partisan-
ship in reviewers may be seen in Eysenck, a noted contemporary of Wolpe, who used his
review of his book to describe his own professional mistreatment by the psychoanalytic es-
tablishment, and by Franks, a colleague of Lazarus, who focused on and faulted my presen-
tation of the Wolpe – Lazarus contretemps.
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BOOK REVIEWS 183

Reviewed by Rachael Rosner, graduate student in Clinical Psychology and

Professor Poppen responds:

184 BOOK REVIEWS

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