Andrew Salter; Considered the Founder of Behavior Therapy

Andrew Salter, 82, the psychologist who is considered the founder of behavior therapy. A native of Waterbury, Conn., Salter earned a bachelor’s degree at New York University but eschewed graduate school. He spent his life in research and clinical practice. Advocating short-term psychotherapy in the 1940s, two decades before it was popularized, Salter provided such landmark ideas as assertion training, expressiveness training and “getting in touch with one’s feelings.” One of his most popular books was “The Case Against Psychoanalysis,” published in 1952. Rejecting Sigmund Freud and his psychoanalytic therapy, Salter termed the long-range technique unscientific and “insipid and unimpressive in its results.” The best way to help people who were overly anxious, shy or depressed, Salter argued, was to teach them how to change their behavior. On Monday in New York of cancer.