The operant side of behavior therapy.

For more than twenty-four hundred years, people were seen to behave in given ways because of what they were feeling or thinking, and feelings and thoughts were therefore the things to study. However, it has always been difficult to do very much with feelings and thoughts because of their inaccessibility to outside observers. Further, important distinctions are obscured when behavior is attributed to a state of mind. As more and more of the variables of which behavior is a function are identified and their role analysed, less remains to be explained in mentalistic ways. The operant side of behavior therapy is illustrated by considering a few characteristic problems. Discussion includes the analysis of contingencies outside and inside the clinic, and the relationship between behavioral health and medical health.