Abstract
Psychological treatment of Irritable Bowel Syndrome - Forty patients suffering from Irritable Bowel Syndrome and not responding to medical treatment were assigned at random lo four types of treatment: two experimental groups ("Contingency Management" Group and "Stress Management" Group) and two control groups ("Medical Treatment" Group and "Placebo VisuaIising Activity" Group). All the subjects were submitted to 12 individual and condition-specific sessions, and kept a daily record of the characteristic symptomatology. Only those subjects belonging to the "Contingency Management" experimental group obtained significant reductions in digestive and extradigestive symptomatology. In the remaining types of treatment no representative or significant changes were noted. The high degree of effectiveness of reinforcement contingency management is to be understood as with regard to the operative character of the symptomatology. IIS is assumed to consist fundamentally of a chronic illness learnt behaviour.
