A behavior-analytic view of psychological health.

This paper argues that a behavioral analysis of psychological health is useful and appropriate. Such an analysis will allow us to better evaluate intervention outcomes without resorting only to the assessment of pathological behavior, thus providing an alternative to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual system of conceptualizing behavior. The goals of such an analysis are to distinguish between people and outcomes using each term of the three-term contingency as a dimension to consider. A brief review of other efforts to define psychological health is provided. Laboratory approaches to a behavioral analysis of healthy behavior are presented along with shortcomings in our science that impede our analysis. Finally, we present some of the functional characteristics of psychological health that we value.