Joseph Wolpe received his medical degree from the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. After medical and surgical internships, he went into private practice and then in 1946 decided to enter psychiatric training and research. During this time, he did the research on which his behavioral therapy is based. Wolpe was professor of psychiatry at the University of Virginia School of Medicine from 1960 to 1965. Since then, he has been director of the Behavior Therapy Unit at Temple University Medical School and a senior research psychiatrist at Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute in Philadelphia.