Behavioral Case Formulation and Intervention

There is a long history of behavioral approaches to psychopathology. Recent work, however, has focused instead on cognitive, psychodynamic and integrative approaches. Behavioral Case Formulation and Intervention redresses this imbalance by exploring radical behaviorism and its approach to the conceptualization, case formulation and treatment of psychopathology. Peter Sturmey describes the conceptual foundations of functional approaches to case formulation and intervention, explains the technology and application of behavioral assessment and hypothesis-driven intervention, and identifies outstanding and conceptual and practical problems within this framework.

About the Author ix

Preface xi

Acknowledgements xvii

Part I Behaviorism and Basic Learning Concepts 1

Chapter 1 Structural and Functional Approaches to Case Formulation 3

Chapter 2 Radical Behaviorism 21

Chapter 3 Respondent Behavior 37

Chapter 4 Operant Behavior I: Characteristics, Acquisition and Stimulus Control 53

Chapter 5 Operant Behavior II: Satiation and Deprivation, Extinction, Shaping, Variability and Punishment 79

Chapter 6 Complex Behavior I: Modeling, Chaining and Self-Regulation 99

Chapter 7 Complex Behavior II: Rule-Governed Behavior, Stimulus Equivalence and Verbal Behavior 117

Part II Case Formulation 141

Chapter 8 Nonbehavioral approaches to case formulation 143

Chapter 9 Wolpe’s Tradition of Case Formulation 169

Chapter 10 Skinner and Psychotherapy 183

Chapter 11 Behavioral Case Formulation 195

Chapter 12 Behavioral Assessment 225

Chapter 13 Outstanding Issues and Future Directions 259

References 289

Index 321

?I would recommend this book to students of psychology, psychologists, psychology departments located in university and hospital settings, libraries in university and hospital settings, psychiatrists, social workers and health behavior departments in university settings.? (Drug and Alcohol Review , September 2009) Peter Sturmey is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology, Queen’s College, City University of New York. He is recognized as an international authority on functional assessment, and published Functional Analysis in Clinical Psychology with Wiley in 1996. More recently, he co-edited Offenders with Developmental Disabilities with Bill Lindsay and John Taylor in 2004. There is a long history of behavioral approaches to psychopathology, however recent work on case formulation has focused on cognitive, psychodynamic and integrative approaches. Behavioral Case Formulation redresses the imbalance by describing radical behaviorism and its approach to the conceptualization, case formulation and treatment of psychopathology.

Behavioral Case Formulation provides a consistent and coherent approach to case formulation:

• It describes the conceptual foundations of functional approaches to case formulation and intervention;
• Reviews the literature on functional analysis applied to abnormal and other behavior;
• Provides an update on advancements during the past 10 years;
• Explains the technology and application of behavioral assessment, case formulation and hypothesis-driven intervention;
• Identifies outstanding and conceptual and practical problems within this framework.

This is an informative, must-have text for psychologists, psychotherapists, counsellors and other clinicians, as well as students in related subject areas.