Joseph Wolpe
Joseph Wolpe (April 20, 1915 – December 4, 1997) was a South African-born American psychologist, famous for his work on systematic desensitization and assertiveness training. He developed the SUDS (Subjective Units of Disturbance Scale) for assessing the level of subjective discomfort or psychological pain.
Life
Joseph Wolpe was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in the family of Michael Salmon and Sarah Millner Wolpe. He grew up in South Africa and received his education there. He obtained his M.D. from the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
When the World War II broke out, Wolpe joined the South African army as a medical officer and worked in a military psychiatric hospital. There he treated patients suffering from the post-traumatic stress syndrome, then known as “war neurosis”. He first started to work on systematic desensitization during this time in the military hospital.
After the war, Wolpe worked at the University of Witwatersrand. There he expanded on his technique of systematic desensitization and conducted series of studies.
He married in 1948 to Stella Ettman, with whom he had two children.
Wolpe migrated with his family to the United States and started to teach at the University of Virginia in 1960. In 1965, he became a professor of psychiatry at Temple University Medical School in Philadelphia, a post that he held until his retirement in 1988. He was also director of the behavior therapy unit at the nearby Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute. He served as the second president of the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy.
Wolpe founded the Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy and the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry.
Wolpe retired from Temple in 1988 and moved to California. He however continued to teach, lecturing at the Pepperdine University for additional nine years. His first wife Stella died in 1990, and he remarried in 1996 to Eva Gyarmati.
Wolpe died of lung cancer on December 4, 1997.
Work
During the World War II, working as a medical officer in a military psychiatric hospital, Wolpe treated soldiers suffering from the post-traumatic stress disorder, then known as "war neurosis”. As the standard treatment consisting of drug therapy proved ineffective, Wolpe decided to find alternative methods of treatment. He developed the technique of desensitization, a type of behavioral therapy that used relaxation methods in dealing with fear and anxiety responses. The idea had some common elements with the relaxation techniques of Edmund Jacobson.
The sistematic desensitization technique was grounded in the belief that much of human behavior is learned, and as such could also be unlearned. Wolpe initially experimented with cats. He used Pavlovian classical conditioning of pairing unpleasent shock with certain sounds, to condition the cats to react with the fear toward those sounds. Once the cats started to react with fear on the sole sound, Wolpe would reverse the experiment and start to pair those sounds with a pleasant stimulus - food. After several experiments cats would gradually unlearn their fear. Wolpe rationalized that similar could be applied in treating phobias, and he developed a method of relaxation and gradual exposure to the unpleasant object until the phobia gradually disappears.
In 1958, Wolpe published his Psychotherapy by Reciprocal Inhibition, in which he revealed his ides. In it he claimed that it was possible to treat the symptoms of anxiety or phobias by teaching patients to relax and confront their fears. The book was met with scepticis and disdain by psychiatric community. Being trained in psyhoanalythical tradition, they believed that Wolpe’s method did not tackle the “cause’ of neuroses, but only the surface of it. As such, the therapy would inevitably lead to “symptom substitution” and not the cure. Wolpe’s therapy however proved successful and is continued to be used in modern psychotherapeutic treatment.
Wolpe also developed a theory of learning called reciprocal inhibition. Reciprocal behaviors are behaviors that compete with each other. If one situation elicits certain response, the new stimulus introduced could elicit different response, and the old reaction could be weakened. As the subject increasingly reacts in an alternative way, the learning occurs and the old behavior gradually completely disappears.
Wolpe also worked on assertiveness training. The idea behind it is similar to the one behind systematic desensitization. People who are unassertive are similar to people with phobias who fear confrontation or rejection. They need to unlearn their fears and gradually learn new behaviors. Wolpe taught them how to relax in a stressful situation and how to conquer their fears.
He developed the SUDS (Subjective Units of Disturbance Scale) for assessing the level of subjective discomfort or psychological pain.
Legacy
Wolpe was a pioneer of cognitive-behavior therapy. His techniques of systematic desensitization, designed for curing phobias and anxiety, as well as his methods used in assertiveness training provided the basis for modern behavior therapy.
Publications
- Wolpe, Joseph. 1958. Psychotherapy by reciprocal inhibition. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
- Wolpe, Joseph. 1964. The conditioning therapies; the challenge in psychotherapy. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
- Wolpe, Joseph. 1969. The practice of behavior therapy. Pergamon general psychology series. New York: Pergamon Press. ISBN 0080065635
- Wolpe, Joseph. 1976. Theme and variations: a behavior therapy casebook. Pergamon general psychology series, 51. New York: Pergamon Press. ISBN 0080204228
- Wolpe, Joseph. 1988. Life without fear: Anxiety and Its Cure. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications. ISBN 0934986495
- Wolpe, Joseph, & Lazarus, Arnold A. 1966. Behavior therapy techniques; a guide to the treatment of neuroses. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Milite, George A. Wolpe, Joseph (1915-1997). Encyclopedia of Psychology. Retrieved on August 26, 2007, <http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_g2699/is_0006/ai_2699000655>.
- Poppen, Roger. 1995. Joseph Wolpe. Key figures in counselling and psychotherapy. London: Sage Publications. ISBN 0803986661
- Reyna, Leo J. 1998. Joseph Wolpe: Pioneer. A Personal Remembrance. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 29(3),187.
External links
- Behavioral therapy – On behavioral therapy
- Joseph Wolpe – On Wolpe’s life and work
- Joseph Wolpe – Article on Wolpe by George A. Milite
- Neurosis: Just a Bad Habit? – Time magazine article from August 02, 1971.
- Systematic Desensitization – On the history of research on desensitization
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