Self-Directed Behavior: Self-Modification for Personal Adjustment

More than just a self-help book, this Sixth Edition of Watson and Tharp's highly successful text continues to provide readers with step-by-step instructions for carrying out a program of self-modification. As readers experience behavior modification in the laboratory of their own lives, they learn sound scientific principles and coping skills for personal problem solving that will be with them for the rest of their lives. Although the authors deal with specific topic areas such as improving study habits, managing stress, or overcoming depression, the book does not narrowly focus on overcoming specific problems. Instead, it emphasizes behavior modification principles students can apply again and again...Watson and Tharp guide students through exercises for developing skills in self-analysis and provide them with concrete information on how to achieve personal goals. Case reports of their own students' self-change projects and others solicited from users of previous editions provide models for success. In addition, the authors include data from empirical field testing of the text indicating that students in courses using this book have achieved self-change goals at percentages varying from 66% to 84% (e.g., Clements & Beidleman, 1981; Hamilton, 1980; Rakos & Grodek, 1984).