This book had its origins In a conference, organised by the Scottish Assocation for Behaviour Modification (SABM), which took place from September 29th to October 2nd, 1980 in Pitlochry, Scotland. The SABM was founded in the early 1970s to fulfil a teaching need and provide a forum at conferences in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland at which mainly clinical psychologists from Scotland and North-West England could discuss research. There have been four such major conferences over the years and the common feature has been the highlighting of research issues mainly in behavioural psychology. At the 4th conference (Pitlochry, 1980), the general emphasis was on the assessment and treatment of chronic illness, although a number of other individual papers were presented. Chapters 4, 5, 8, 10 and 11 are based on papers from the full-day symposium on clinical psychology and physical illness (to which general medical practit­ ioners were invited), although Chapter 8 in particular comprises a much wider review paper than the original conference paper; and Chapter 13 is also a much extended version of a paper accepted for, but not presented at, the conference. Chapters 15, 16, 18 and 19 are based on papers comprising the symposium on behavioural approach­ es to the care of the long-stay psychiatric patient. Chapters 2 and 3 are based on invited individual papers presented at the conference. At the request of the publisher, additional material was commissioned.