Behavior Analysis of Psychotic Disorders: Scientific Dead End or Casualty of the Mental Health Political Economy?

Behavior Analysis and the Treatment of Schizophrenia: An Alternative to Wong’s (2006) View of the Political Economy

“…While this author is in general agreement with Wong's (2006) policy analysis of the political climate that influences the funding and non-funding of studies, it is my contention that the author has missed a basic underlying mechanism of funding in the 1980s and 1990s, which may have accounted for the rejection of the pilot program discussed in his article. Simply, the program was inpatient treatment oriented, and such treatments were being limited for a number of reasons.…”

“…The history of behavior analysis and schizophrenia is a very long and interesting one (Wong, 2006). In addition, the corresponding influence and power of biological psychiatry is also interesting as pointed out by Wyatt and Midkiff (2006).…”

A Preliminary Analysis of the Effects of Coaching Feedback on Teacher Implementation Fidelity of First Step to Success

“…Such disorders include depression, anxiety, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), child conduct problems, and schizophrenia (Antonuccio, Danton, DeNelsky, Greenberg, & Gordon, 1999;Terry & Kohlenberg, 2006;Valenstein, 1998;Winston, 2006, Wong, 2006aWong, 2006b;Wong 2007;Wyatt 2003;Wyatt, 2006;Wyatt & Midkiff, 2006a;Wyatt & Midkiff, 2006b;Wyatt & Midkiff, 2007). Skinner pointed out the cultural shift many years ago when he noted that human biology had become a convenient "dumping ground" where the cause of any unexplained abnormal behavior was hypothesized to lie (Skinner, 1974).…”

Opinion: Notes From a Radical Behaviorist

“…I will discuss only briefly the antipsychotic medications as their history, use, effectiveness, and side effects are well described elsewhere (Wyatt &Midkiff, 2006, andWong, 2006).…”

“…However, biological determinism has a disgraceful history, a history involving scientific racism, scientific sexism, scientific classism, and what I call scientific mentalism. Furthermore, an appreciation of that disgraceful history can provide perspective for evaluating the contemporary emphasis on the biological and genetic basis of "mental illness" so well critiqued by Wong (2006) and Wyatt (2006). The present article is an attitude-laden summary of that disgraceful history, followed by a few guidelines for a behavioral approach to the analysis of complex behavior-environment interactions, and finally a glance at a couple current "mental-illness" issues from the behavioranalytic perspective developed in this article.…”