Wolpe’s proposal of conditioning as a method of behavioral psychotherapy was developed fairly later in his career before that behaviorist (who study behaviorism psychology) such as B. F. Skinner advocated its use as a method of modifying behavior — encouraging “desirable” and discouraging “undesirable” behavior. This kind of behavioral therapy formed the basis for a type of treatment suggested by B. F. Skinner, among others; but what Wolpe was proposing was something quite different: using conditioning to change not behavior but the psychological and emotional reaction in a process called reciprocal inhibition. The theory was much simpler and demonstrated itself in a widely known experiment – The Little Albert experiment.
The experiment demonstrated that an emotional response could indeed be learned through classical Pavlovian conditioning, and could also successfully be unlearned. But from their experiences with PTSD patients, Wolpe knew that one cannot simultaneously feel both fear and relaxation. If someone is conditioned to respond to stimuli with feelings of calm, this will inhibit the fearful response that causes stress, successfully blocking one response in turn for another.
