establishment by showing that snake phobia was merely a conditioned
response that could be cured by systematic desensitization.
Desensitization means weakening the connection of fear with anything
else; in the case of snakes, for example, by repeatedly pairing snakes with
relaxation techniques. There was a short period in the history of psychology
during which every graduate program had its own pet snake. You can
imagine what the more Freudian professors had to say about that. They
also said that desensitization could never in fact actually cure a phobia
because the unconscious would merely pick some other symbolic object
to fear. Symptom substitutionwas what they called it, and try though they
might, the analysts were never able to show it existed. They lost big-time.
Next, the behaviorists gleefully pointed out that any number of psy-
choanalytic concepts could not pass muster when subjected to research.
The analysts protested that their ideas were too complex to be tested by
the simple which-technique-works-better paradigms the behaviorists used,
but nobody listened. In those days, no self-respecting scientist would do
anything but sneer at psychoanalysis. Seventy years of close observations
of how verbal subtlety could be used to heal were relegated to the same
category as ESP.
Meanwhile the victorious behaviorists were learning that you could pair
relaxation exercises with just the thoughtof a snake and desensitization
would still work. The black box inside the head opened and revealed that
the mind containedcognitions that followed the same rules of reinforce-
ment as external behaviors. Clients could learn to think in ways that would
make them feel better.Cognitive therapywas born.
In those wild wartime days when behaviorism battled psychoanalysis,
there arose a third force, which in its time was called the human potential
movement. It’s still around today, now called all sorts of creative names by
its practitioners,New Age orTouchy-Feelyby its detractors.
Human potential therapy is simple enough for a flower child to
understand. The central idea is essentially if you express your feelings,
everything will be okay.Most concepts were borrowed from psychoanalysis,
then dumbed down and spiced up with gratuitous sex and aggression.
There were nude encounter groups, and people settled differences by
pounding each other with foam bats until the anger just faded away. Then
they hugged.
96 ❧Explosions into Fear