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The basis of behavior therapy, mentalistic or behavioristic? A reply to E. A. Locke
Behav. Res. & Therapy. 1973. Vol. 11, pp, lS7 to 163. Pergamon Press. Printed in England
THE BASIS OF BEHAVIOR THERAPY, MENTALISTIC OR BEHAVIORISTIC? A REPLY TO E. A. LOCKE WILLIAM F. WATERS· and ROBERT N. MCCALLUM University of Missouri School of Medicine, Columbia, U.S.A. (Received 28 June 1972)
Summary- Locke's (1971)analysis of behavior therapy is criticized on the following grounds: (a) the use of mentalistic terms by behaviorists cannot be said to infer an implicit nonbehavioristic orientation, nor can it be said to imply anything about the 'nature' of the processes involved in behavior therapy; (b) although behavior therapy can be described in mentalistic terms an alternate description does not mean that the processes involved in behavior therapy are inconsistent with a behavioristic view; and (c) 'mental' phenomena, whether or not associated with the processes basic to behavior therapy, were not explicitly defined by Locke, and further were not demonstrated by him to be necessary conditions for the efficacy of behavior therapy. An examination of Locke's mentalistic description of Wolpe's behavior therapies indicated that those procedures could be described adequately from a behavioristic frame of reference when the mentalistic terms substituted by Locke were carefully defined. It was concluded that the behavioristic description, although no more 'correct' or 'incorrect' than Locke's mentalistic description is at least more parsimonious and subject to scientific test. .
LOCKE (1971) has recently argued that Wolpe's psychotherapeutic methods are not, in fact, based upon behavioristic principles. The efficacy of behavior therapy, Locke maintained, depends upon certain mental phenomena (e.g. conscious awareness, introspection, understanding and purposeful internal control) which lie outside the purview of behaviorism. Locke suggested that Wolpe's actual psychotherapeutic procedures can be subsumed under five main categories, each of which involves some mental operation or combination of operations. To support his argument, Locke provided extensive documentation that Wolpe's own descriptions of his procedures are rife with mentalistic terms, and concluded that the use of such terms constitutes an implicit admission that the phenomena and/or procedures referred to are not behavioristic. The present authors contend, however: (a) that whether or not Wolpe or other behaviorists use mentalistic terms is irrelevant to questions regarding the bases of behavior therapy ; (b) that virtually any psychotherapeutic enterprise can be described in either mentalistic or behavioristic terms so that Locke's particular conceptualization of behavior therapy in no way negates the behavioristic basis of behavior therapy; and (c) that regardless of whether 'mental' phenomena are or are not associated with what occurs in the process of behavior therapy, the crucial issue is whether the postulation of such subjective, private, 'mental' events is necessary in order to account for the process and outcome of Wolpe's therapeutic procedures. • Requests for reprints should be sent to William F. Waters, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 65201,U.S.A. The ordering of names was determined by chance and does not reflect differences in the contribution. The authors wish to express their gratitude to Donald Kausler and Jerome Pauker for their helpful comments. •. R.T. 11/2-A
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USE OF MENTALISTIC TERMS BY BEHAVIORISTS That a phenomenon or procedure is described in mentalistic terms says nothing, of course, about the nature of that phenomenon or event, nor does the use of such terms necessarily say anything about the theoretical views of the user. An excellent discussion of this point may be found in Skinner (1964). While the linguistic inconsistencies of some behaviorists may be distressing to other behaviorists and to nonbehaviorists alike, documentation of these inconsistencies would seem to serve little purpose. Certainly the inconsistencies in the verbal repertoires of some behaviorists do not constitute valid evidence that 'mental' phenomena exist as such, or have meaning apart from the operational referents of those phenomena. For example, Locke's assertion that Wolpe talking to his patient about anxiety (rather than about muscle tension or sweating) constitutes " an implicit admission that emotions consist of something more than bodily responses " (Locke, 1971, p. 320) is simply not a viable argument. Anxiety can be defined as a label for, a verbal response evoked by, a particular pattern of physiological response and response-produced stimuli occurring in that class of stimulus situation typically labeled anxiety-provoking. Such a conceptualization of anxiety is behavioristic and does not imply that anxiety is more than a bodily (autonomic and motor-verbal) response. When anxiety is conceptualized in such a way, as Wolpe (1958) indeed does, then the use of the term anxiety is not an implicit admission that emotions consist of something more than bodily responses. If Wolpe is guilty of anything, it is the use of a conventional term to describe a particular series of events, and certainly, it is more convenient (although less accurate) to use a term such as anxiety than to repeatedly give a complex description of the elicitation of autonomic response patterns and the subsequent associated verbal responses (labels). Thus, the use of mentalistic terms by behaviorists does not necessarily betray inconsistencies in their orientations and Locke's assertion that behaviorists (specifically Wolpe) do not use mentalistic terms simply as labels is no more than that: an assertion. Nor does it mean that the processes denoted by such terms are not consistent with behavioristic principles. The relevant question then, is not whether behaviorists use mentalistic terms, but how they define such terms and whether it is necessary to describe what occurs in behavior therapy in mentalistic terms, particularly if more rigorous and parsimonious descriptions are available.
MENTALISTIC AND BEHAVIORISTIC DESCRIPTIONS Locke suggested that "... Wolpe's actual psychotherapeutic procedures can be subsumed under five categories: (a) convincing the patient that he can be helped by (behavior) therapy; (b) identifying the patient's irrational beliefs, values and fears; (c) providing the patient with new knowledge and/or values; (d) helping and persuading the patient to act on this new knowledge; and (e) teaching the patient to relax in the presence of formerly frightening situations (relaxation training, imagining situations, etc.)" (Locke, 1971,p. 324). There is little question that Wolpe's behavior modification procedures could be described in this way if one did not need to have such terms as 'convincing', 'beliefs', 'persuading' and 'teaching' rigorously defined such that they become relatively devoid of ambiguity and surplus meaning. Locke's analysis of behavior therapy is superficial and laden with mentalistic terms that are never so defined. Locke's analysis, however, is not 'incorrect' since theoretical formulations can never be 'correct' or 'incorrect', but its level of explicitness is
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low, and its usefulness questionable. Therefore, Locke's analysis of behavior therapy cannot, in and of itself, constitute a valid refutation of the behavioristic nature of these therapeutic procedures. To illustrate the ease with which terms can be translated from one theoretical framework to another, the present authors have taken Locke's five stage analysis of behavior therapy and described it in a manner congruent with behavioristic principles and theory. Such a reformulation of Locke's analysis is, of course, no more or less 'correct' than the original, but it is more explicit, rigorous and parsimon ious. Convincing the patient that he can be helped
If and when a behavior therapist takes it upon himself to convince a patient of the efficacy of his procedures (an operation by no means universal among behavior therapists), it is not sufficient to state that all he is doing is 'convincing' the patient. Such therapist behavior is, from a behavioristic viewpoint, a means whereby the patient remaining in the therapeutic situation and responding appropriately to the therapist's instructions (cues) is reinforced. That is, the patient typically enters therapy in a state of intense discomfort (an inferred physiological state associated with certain consensual verbal responses), and such events as lead to a reduction in discomfort are reinforcing and serve to maintain the responses preceding them. Statements by the therapist such as " Remain in therapy with me arid you are likely to become less uncomfortable", or "The form of therapy you are about to undergo is demonstrably effective", are likely to function as effective reinforcers for responses leading to a continuance of therapy and cooperation by the patient. Nor is the content of such therapist statements necessarily the only reinforcing thing about them, as the patient also likely responds to cues such as voice tone which in the past have been associated with events leading to a reduction in discomfort. Identifying irrational beliefs, values and fears
Locke takes issue with the manner in which Wolpe diagnoses his patients . According to Locke, diagnosis is a process which attempts to identify various 'mental' operations, and is thus inconsistent with behavioristic principles. The inconsistency of traditional diagnostic procedures with a behavioristic framework , however, is illusory. The diagnostic process may be seen as essentially a means of evoking verbal responses from a patient which are labels for those physiological and overt responses which led the patient to seek therapy (i.e. the responses to be modified). The therapist asks questions of the patient relative to the patient's disordered behavior. These therapist-produced stimuli are discriminative stimuli which set the occasion for patient responses which in turn set the occasion (are discriminative stimuli) for additional therapist responses, and so on. Many of the patient's responses may function as reinforcers for the therapist's inquisitive behavior, while some of the therapi st's responses may reinforce the patient's responding with appropriate answers. Such a description of the diagnostic procedure, while admittedly oversimplified (but not because of the omission of mentalistic concepts), is indeed behavioristic. Whether this particular formulation is empirically accurate or not is testable, whereas many of Locke's assertions are not. Providing the patient with new knowledge and/or values
That behavior therapy provides the patient with 'new knowledge and/or values' can hardly be taken as a contradiction of the behavioristic nature of behavior therapy. There need not be anything mysterious or mentalistic about knowledge, new or otherwise, nor about values. To the behaviorist , the acquisition of 'knowledge' is learning, it is measured
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through the sampling of an individual's response repertoire , and it is altered in accordance with changes in the various conditions of learning (Hull, 1964). 'Values' might well be described in terms of the reinforcing power of stimuli relative to one another, and this too can be seen to change with changes in the various conditions of learning (Homans, 1961). Again, such conceptualizations are subject to empirical test, since they are relatively rigorous and denotative as compared to the rather vague and connotative vernacular definitions of 'knowledge' and 'values' implied by Locke (who defined neither term). Helping and persuading the patient to act
Little is added to the science of human behavior by statements such as those made by Locke that the behavior therapist helps and persuades the patient to act on his knowledge, without adequate definitions of 'helping' and 'persuading' in this context. Much like 'convincing' the patient, 'helping' and 'persuading' him may be seen as the emission of therapist responses which are useful in eliciting the patient responses to be modified, or in setting the occasion for their emission. In order for a response to be classically conditioned, operantly shaped or extinguished, it first must be elicited or emitted. In this sense, the behavior therapist emits responses that function as conditioned stimuli (e.g. descriptions of hierarchy items in systematic desensitization) or discriminative stimuli (e.g. instructions to make socially assertive responses in assertive training). The patient, in emitting the appropriate responses (having been 'persuaded' to act), is reinforced by the therapist and eventually by other consequences of his new responses. The therapist's helping and persuading responses are reinforced by the patient's cooperation and the objectively measured changes in his behavior. Teaching the patient to relax
In 'teaching' the patient how to relax in the presence of fear provoking stimuli, the behavior therapist does what he has always claimed to do; arrange the most effective feasible conditions for learning and extinction. MENTAL OPERAnONS: HOW DEFINED AND HOW NECESSARY? In the preceding sections the authors have attempted to demonstrate that Locke's arguments, while perhaps correct in some respects (e.g. some behaviorists do use mentalistic terms), are not conclusive regarding the processes involved in behavior therapy. However, other issues remain to be resolved, specifically those relating to mental operations. Locke stated that simply labeling mental operations as, for example, 'thinking behavior' or 'emotional behavior' would not make those mental operations any less mental nor more behavioristic. In this respect the present authors and Locke are in total accord . If a behaviorist attempts to deal with thinking and/or feelings, he ought not content himself with the assignment of behavioristic labels to these phenomena. But behavioral analyses of such phenomena need not end merely with labels. Many, though not all, so-called 'mental events' can be defined and described in a thoroughly behavioristic manner, and the manner in which 'mental' processes are defined and described is important. However, the overriding question concerns the necessity of such processes in producing the changes in behavior sought by behavior therapists. 'Consciousness' is something that Locke (1971) talks about a great deal, but never defines. His ambiguous use of the term 'consciousness', laden as it is with surplus meaning, renders it virtually useless as an explanatory concept. At times, Locke seems to equate
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'consciousness' to simple awareness, i.e, awareness defined as that condition of an organism in which it is responding to stimulation. Simple awareness is not a concept that is inimicable to behaviorism. In other instances, Locke uses 'consciousness' as though he means selfawareness, but even the introduction of a concept such as 'self-awareness' can be absorbed into a behavioristic framework so long as the concept is not allowed to stand for anything more than its operational referents. That is, self-awareness could be taken as that condition of an organism in which it is aware of (i.e. responding to) certain types of stimuli (e.g. response-produced stimuli occurring within the organism as a direct function of external stimulation or as a function of a chain of external stimulations, internal responses and response-produced stimuli). In this sense, self-awareness does not exist apart from those observable, measurable responses (e.g. motor, motor-verbal and/or autonomic) which define it. This, of course is, what differentiates the behavioristic concept from Locke's more colloquial usage. At other times, however, Locke seemingly uses the term 'consciousness' to mean a higher-order process which, in actuality, pertains to an organism's awareness of its own awareness. In this sense, the concept of 'consciousness' becomes rather complex and problematic. Thorough and excellent discussions of the issues connected with this conception of a higher-order consciousness are available in many philosophy and psychology texts (e.g. Castell, 1965), though these discussions do not provide a final answer to the question as to whether or not awareness of awareness is crucial to processes such as those used in behavior therapy. It can be stated however, that the interjection of the concept of 'awareness of awareness' into any formulation of what occurs in behavior therapy, dictates that the author assume the responsibility for providing data relevant to, and supportive of, his position. This Locke did not do, and it remains for him to demonstrate convincingly (i.e. empirically) that an awareness of awareness is a necessary condition for the efficacious use of behavior therapeutic techniques. In the previous sections, the present authors have presented a description of behavior therapy which does not require the postulation of such a higher-order mental phenomenon (awareness of awareness) but which does assume simple awareness and organismic self-awareness. In the process of behavior therapy, it is not sufficient, of course, for the patient to be able to merely sense external and internal stimuli. The patient must also be able to respond to such stimuli in a manner that permits the therapist to respond in turn by arranging optimal conditions for learning or extinction. Thus, the patient must be able to make an appropriate (consensual) verbal response to, for example, internal autonomic response-produced stimuli when an external conditioned stimulus elicits autonomic arousal. The emission of such verbal responses by a patient is what Locke refers to as 'introspection'. Introspection is rejected by behaviorists insofar as it is used as a substitute for scientific method and insofar as the verbal reports so obtained are interpreted as anything other than indirect and tentative reflection of other processes. Thus, the behavior therapist engaged in systematic desensitization should be ready to admit that, in the absence of evidence of decreased overt avoidance of, or of decreased autonomic response to a feared stimulus, he may have succeeded only in extinguishing the motor-verbal component of the fear response. Only an 'introspectionist' could say that the fear response was extinguished when the sole basis for such a conclusion was the verbal report of the patient. Purposivism and internally determined control (free will) are concepts that are essentially antithetical to behaviorism; that is, they have yet to be defined in a manner consistent with a behavioristic framework since, above all else, behaviorism teaches that an organism's behavior is determined by contingencies of events external to the organism as they interact
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with and influence the physiological state of the organism and its learned and genetic response repertoires. Skinner (1971) discusses the problems associated with these two concepts at great length. The behavioristic conception of self-control does not abandon the deterministic orientation: the self-controlling organism is responding to external and consequent internal stimulation in the form of feedback descriptive of its own responding, and, of course, emitting new responses that are more powerfully and frequently reinforced. The homunculus within the 'black box' implied by the purposive internal control concept simply has no scientific status. Locke may, and indeed does decry psychology as a discipline for not providing evidence supporting his theoretical beliefs. He may claim, as he indeed does, that psychologists have "an 'unscientific' conception of the nature of science" (Locke, 1971, p. 326), but so long as rigor, explicitness, objectivity and parsimony remain as values associated with, and goals of, psychological exploration, it is unlikely that Locke's homunculus will attain scientific status. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS The present authors have argued that the mentalistic language of some behaviorist s while perhaps annoying to purists, is really not relevant to the issues raised by Locke . The conceptualization of behavior therapy offered by Locke, while neither 'correct' nor 'incorrect', is inconclusive since it was demonstrated that the five categories of this conceptualization could be easily reformulated into a behavioristic framework in which the mental phenomena and processes described by Locke are accounted for, but in terms very much consistent with modern behaviorism. This reformulation, then, of Locke's analysis, while neither more nor less 'correct' than the original, is scientifically more acceptable because it is more parsimonious in describing the same events posited by Locke, and is more readily testable. Locke's major argument is that behavior therapy is inconsistent with behaviorism. However, behaviorism, persistently attacked by Locke throughout his article, is not a monolithic entity constituted of a unified set of theoretical propositions, but is a loosely knit framework of principles of behavior. If Locke had argued merely that behavior therapy is inconsistent with 'strict behaviorism' (e.g. 'early Skinnarianism') rather than behaviorism in the more general sense, the authors could not have taken issue with him. Nor could they disagree with the statement that a 'strict' behaviorist studies only observable behavior. But if Locke believes, as he seems to imply, that one cannot study inferred events or processes which have measurable operational referents and remain a behaviorist of any kind, then he is patently wrong. If attention to inferred states and processes (no matter how strictly and rigorously defined) disqualifies one as a 'strict behaviorist', sobeit, But the only alternative to strict behaviorism need not be mentalism, and the inclusion of inferred physiological states and processes in the study of human behavior should not open the floodgates to superfluous, undefined, unoperationalized, hypothetical constructs such as those proposed by Locke. Locke (1971, p. 325) stated that "the understanding of enormously complex actions such as thinking and reasoning is not aided by arbitrarily attaching the label 'conditioned stimuli ' to the tools (words) man uses to accomplish these tasks", and it is within this brief statement that the crux of our opposition to Locke's position may be found. In the first place, understanding is not the only, nor necessarily the primary, recognized goal of science. Even if Locke's conceptualization of behavior therapy did aid in our understanding of
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behavior therapeutic processes, similar mentalistic conceptualizations have hindered psychologists in the past in their ability to predict and control human behavior (c.f. Skinner, 1964; Ullmann and Krasner, 1969), and any advantages in understanding offered by formulations such as Locke's if, in fact, any exist, may well be negated by their disadvantages. Secondly, the 'complexity' of the process described by Locke has nothing to do with the appropriateness of a behavioral analysis of them, and thirdly, the attachment of the label 'conditioned stimuli' to the words that man uses is far from arbitrary (Staats and Staats, 1964). Finally, Locke fails completely to demonstrate how the understanding of these 'enormously complex actions' is any more aided by arbitrarily attaching labels like 'consciousness', 'purpose', etc. to them. In other words, if behavioristic analyses of these phenomena are inadequate (a point not conceded), resortment to mentalistic explanations is no more satisfactory, and, in fact, is even less satisfactory because of the introduction of surplus meaning. The present authors cannot deny the existence of 'mental' phenomena in general, nor the specific concepts discussed by Locke. The existence of such phenomena is not at issue; what is important, however, is the manner in which mentalistic concepts are defined, and, regardless of the definition, the necessity of using them in the predicting, controlling, and understanding of human behavior. REFERENCES CASTELL A. (1965) The Self in Philosophy. Macmillan, New York. HOMANS G. C. (1961) Social Behavior: Its Elementary Forms, pp. 292-345. Harcourt, New York. HULL C. G. (1964) Knowledge and purpose as habit mechanism. Human Learning (Ed. A. E. STAATS), pp. 148-152. Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York. LOCKE E. A. (1971) Is 'behavior therapy' behavioristic? (An analysis ofWolpe's psychotherapeutic methods). Psychol. Bull. 76, 5, 318-327. SKINl'iER B. F. (1964) Behaviorism at fifty, Behaviorism and Phenomenology (Ed. T. W. WANl'i), pp. 79-108. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. SKINNER B. F. (1971) Beyond Freedom and Dignity. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. STAATS A. W. and STAATS C. K. (1964) Complex Human Behavior, pp. 115-258. Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York. ULLMANN L. P. and KRASNER L. (1969) A Psychological Approach to Abnormal Behavior, pp. 106-171. Prentice-Hall, New Jersey. WOLPE J. (1958) Psychotherapy by Reciprocal Inhibition. Stanford University Press, Stanford.
THE BASIS OF BEHAVIOR THERAPY, MENTALISTIC OR BEHAVIORISTIC? A REPLY TO E. A. LOCKE WILLIAM F. WATERS· and ROBERT N. MCCALLUM University of Missouri School of Medicine, Columbia, U.S.A. (Received 28 June 1972)
Summary- Locke's (1971)analysis of behavior therapy is criticized on the following grounds: (a) the use of mentalistic terms by behaviorists cannot be said to infer an implicit nonbehavioristic orientation, nor can it be said to imply anything about the 'nature' of the processes involved in behavior therapy; (b) although behavior therapy can be described in mentalistic terms an alternate description does not mean that the processes involved in behavior therapy are inconsistent with a behavioristic view; and (c) 'mental' phenomena, whether or not associated with the processes basic to behavior therapy, were not explicitly defined by Locke, and further were not demonstrated by him to be necessary conditions for the efficacy of behavior therapy. An examination of Locke's mentalistic description of Wolpe's behavior therapies indicated that those procedures could be described adequately from a behavioristic frame of reference when the mentalistic terms substituted by Locke were carefully defined. It was concluded that the behavioristic description, although no more 'correct' or 'incorrect' than Locke's mentalistic description is at least more parsimonious and subject to scientific test. .
LOCKE (1971) has recently argued that Wolpe's psychotherapeutic methods are not, in fact, based upon behavioristic principles. The efficacy of behavior therapy, Locke maintained, depends upon certain mental phenomena (e.g. conscious awareness, introspection, understanding and purposeful internal control) which lie outside the purview of behaviorism. Locke suggested that Wolpe's actual psychotherapeutic procedures can be subsumed under five main categories, each of which involves some mental operation or combination of operations. To support his argument, Locke provided extensive documentation that Wolpe's own descriptions of his procedures are rife with mentalistic terms, and concluded that the use of such terms constitutes an implicit admission that the phenomena and/or procedures referred to are not behavioristic. The present authors contend, however: (a) that whether or not Wolpe or other behaviorists use mentalistic terms is irrelevant to questions regarding the bases of behavior therapy ; (b) that virtually any psychotherapeutic enterprise can be described in either mentalistic or behavioristic terms so that Locke's particular conceptualization of behavior therapy in no way negates the behavioristic basis of behavior therapy; and (c) that regardless of whether 'mental' phenomena are or are not associated with what occurs in the process of behavior therapy, the crucial issue is whether the postulation of such subjective, private, 'mental' events is necessary in order to account for the process and outcome of Wolpe's therapeutic procedures. • Requests for reprints should be sent to William F. Waters, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 65201,U.S.A. The ordering of names was determined by chance and does not reflect differences in the contribution. The authors wish to express their gratitude to Donald Kausler and Jerome Pauker for their helpful comments. •. R.T. 11/2-A
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USE OF MENTALISTIC TERMS BY BEHAVIORISTS That a phenomenon or procedure is described in mentalistic terms says nothing, of course, about the nature of that phenomenon or event, nor does the use of such terms necessarily say anything about the theoretical views of the user. An excellent discussion of this point may be found in Skinner (1964). While the linguistic inconsistencies of some behaviorists may be distressing to other behaviorists and to nonbehaviorists alike, documentation of these inconsistencies would seem to serve little purpose. Certainly the inconsistencies in the verbal repertoires of some behaviorists do not constitute valid evidence that 'mental' phenomena exist as such, or have meaning apart from the operational referents of those phenomena. For example, Locke's assertion that Wolpe talking to his patient about anxiety (rather than about muscle tension or sweating) constitutes " an implicit admission that emotions consist of something more than bodily responses " (Locke, 1971, p. 320) is simply not a viable argument. Anxiety can be defined as a label for, a verbal response evoked by, a particular pattern of physiological response and response-produced stimuli occurring in that class of stimulus situation typically labeled anxiety-provoking. Such a conceptualization of anxiety is behavioristic and does not imply that anxiety is more than a bodily (autonomic and motor-verbal) response. When anxiety is conceptualized in such a way, as Wolpe (1958) indeed does, then the use of the term anxiety is not an implicit admission that emotions consist of something more than bodily responses. If Wolpe is guilty of anything, it is the use of a conventional term to describe a particular series of events, and certainly, it is more convenient (although less accurate) to use a term such as anxiety than to repeatedly give a complex description of the elicitation of autonomic response patterns and the subsequent associated verbal responses (labels). Thus, the use of mentalistic terms by behaviorists does not necessarily betray inconsistencies in their orientations and Locke's assertion that behaviorists (specifically Wolpe) do not use mentalistic terms simply as labels is no more than that: an assertion. Nor does it mean that the processes denoted by such terms are not consistent with behavioristic principles. The relevant question then, is not whether behaviorists use mentalistic terms, but how they define such terms and whether it is necessary to describe what occurs in behavior therapy in mentalistic terms, particularly if more rigorous and parsimonious descriptions are available.
MENTALISTIC AND BEHAVIORISTIC DESCRIPTIONS Locke suggested that "... Wolpe's actual psychotherapeutic procedures can be subsumed under five categories: (a) convincing the patient that he can be helped by (behavior) therapy; (b) identifying the patient's irrational beliefs, values and fears; (c) providing the patient with new knowledge and/or values; (d) helping and persuading the patient to act on this new knowledge; and (e) teaching the patient to relax in the presence of formerly frightening situations (relaxation training, imagining situations, etc.)" (Locke, 1971,p. 324). There is little question that Wolpe's behavior modification procedures could be described in this way if one did not need to have such terms as 'convincing', 'beliefs', 'persuading' and 'teaching' rigorously defined such that they become relatively devoid of ambiguity and surplus meaning. Locke's analysis of behavior therapy is superficial and laden with mentalistic terms that are never so defined. Locke's analysis, however, is not 'incorrect' since theoretical formulations can never be 'correct' or 'incorrect', but its level of explicitness is
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low, and its usefulness questionable. Therefore, Locke's analysis of behavior therapy cannot, in and of itself, constitute a valid refutation of the behavioristic nature of these therapeutic procedures. To illustrate the ease with which terms can be translated from one theoretical framework to another, the present authors have taken Locke's five stage analysis of behavior therapy and described it in a manner congruent with behavioristic principles and theory. Such a reformulation of Locke's analysis is, of course, no more or less 'correct' than the original, but it is more explicit, rigorous and parsimon ious. Convincing the patient that he can be helped
If and when a behavior therapist takes it upon himself to convince a patient of the efficacy of his procedures (an operation by no means universal among behavior therapists), it is not sufficient to state that all he is doing is 'convincing' the patient. Such therapist behavior is, from a behavioristic viewpoint, a means whereby the patient remaining in the therapeutic situation and responding appropriately to the therapist's instructions (cues) is reinforced. That is, the patient typically enters therapy in a state of intense discomfort (an inferred physiological state associated with certain consensual verbal responses), and such events as lead to a reduction in discomfort are reinforcing and serve to maintain the responses preceding them. Statements by the therapist such as " Remain in therapy with me arid you are likely to become less uncomfortable", or "The form of therapy you are about to undergo is demonstrably effective", are likely to function as effective reinforcers for responses leading to a continuance of therapy and cooperation by the patient. Nor is the content of such therapist statements necessarily the only reinforcing thing about them, as the patient also likely responds to cues such as voice tone which in the past have been associated with events leading to a reduction in discomfort. Identifying irrational beliefs, values and fears
Locke takes issue with the manner in which Wolpe diagnoses his patients . According to Locke, diagnosis is a process which attempts to identify various 'mental' operations, and is thus inconsistent with behavioristic principles. The inconsistency of traditional diagnostic procedures with a behavioristic framework , however, is illusory. The diagnostic process may be seen as essentially a means of evoking verbal responses from a patient which are labels for those physiological and overt responses which led the patient to seek therapy (i.e. the responses to be modified). The therapist asks questions of the patient relative to the patient's disordered behavior. These therapist-produced stimuli are discriminative stimuli which set the occasion for patient responses which in turn set the occasion (are discriminative stimuli) for additional therapist responses, and so on. Many of the patient's responses may function as reinforcers for the therapist's inquisitive behavior, while some of the therapi st's responses may reinforce the patient's responding with appropriate answers. Such a description of the diagnostic procedure, while admittedly oversimplified (but not because of the omission of mentalistic concepts), is indeed behavioristic. Whether this particular formulation is empirically accurate or not is testable, whereas many of Locke's assertions are not. Providing the patient with new knowledge and/or values
That behavior therapy provides the patient with 'new knowledge and/or values' can hardly be taken as a contradiction of the behavioristic nature of behavior therapy. There need not be anything mysterious or mentalistic about knowledge, new or otherwise, nor about values. To the behaviorist , the acquisition of 'knowledge' is learning, it is measured
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through the sampling of an individual's response repertoire , and it is altered in accordance with changes in the various conditions of learning (Hull, 1964). 'Values' might well be described in terms of the reinforcing power of stimuli relative to one another, and this too can be seen to change with changes in the various conditions of learning (Homans, 1961). Again, such conceptualizations are subject to empirical test, since they are relatively rigorous and denotative as compared to the rather vague and connotative vernacular definitions of 'knowledge' and 'values' implied by Locke (who defined neither term). Helping and persuading the patient to act
Little is added to the science of human behavior by statements such as those made by Locke that the behavior therapist helps and persuades the patient to act on his knowledge, without adequate definitions of 'helping' and 'persuading' in this context. Much like 'convincing' the patient, 'helping' and 'persuading' him may be seen as the emission of therapist responses which are useful in eliciting the patient responses to be modified, or in setting the occasion for their emission. In order for a response to be classically conditioned, operantly shaped or extinguished, it first must be elicited or emitted. In this sense, the behavior therapist emits responses that function as conditioned stimuli (e.g. descriptions of hierarchy items in systematic desensitization) or discriminative stimuli (e.g. instructions to make socially assertive responses in assertive training). The patient, in emitting the appropriate responses (having been 'persuaded' to act), is reinforced by the therapist and eventually by other consequences of his new responses. The therapist's helping and persuading responses are reinforced by the patient's cooperation and the objectively measured changes in his behavior. Teaching the patient to relax
In 'teaching' the patient how to relax in the presence of fear provoking stimuli, the behavior therapist does what he has always claimed to do; arrange the most effective feasible conditions for learning and extinction. MENTAL OPERAnONS: HOW DEFINED AND HOW NECESSARY? In the preceding sections the authors have attempted to demonstrate that Locke's arguments, while perhaps correct in some respects (e.g. some behaviorists do use mentalistic terms), are not conclusive regarding the processes involved in behavior therapy. However, other issues remain to be resolved, specifically those relating to mental operations. Locke stated that simply labeling mental operations as, for example, 'thinking behavior' or 'emotional behavior' would not make those mental operations any less mental nor more behavioristic. In this respect the present authors and Locke are in total accord . If a behaviorist attempts to deal with thinking and/or feelings, he ought not content himself with the assignment of behavioristic labels to these phenomena. But behavioral analyses of such phenomena need not end merely with labels. Many, though not all, so-called 'mental events' can be defined and described in a thoroughly behavioristic manner, and the manner in which 'mental' processes are defined and described is important. However, the overriding question concerns the necessity of such processes in producing the changes in behavior sought by behavior therapists. 'Consciousness' is something that Locke (1971) talks about a great deal, but never defines. His ambiguous use of the term 'consciousness', laden as it is with surplus meaning, renders it virtually useless as an explanatory concept. At times, Locke seems to equate
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'consciousness' to simple awareness, i.e, awareness defined as that condition of an organism in which it is responding to stimulation. Simple awareness is not a concept that is inimicable to behaviorism. In other instances, Locke uses 'consciousness' as though he means selfawareness, but even the introduction of a concept such as 'self-awareness' can be absorbed into a behavioristic framework so long as the concept is not allowed to stand for anything more than its operational referents. That is, self-awareness could be taken as that condition of an organism in which it is aware of (i.e. responding to) certain types of stimuli (e.g. response-produced stimuli occurring within the organism as a direct function of external stimulation or as a function of a chain of external stimulations, internal responses and response-produced stimuli). In this sense, self-awareness does not exist apart from those observable, measurable responses (e.g. motor, motor-verbal and/or autonomic) which define it. This, of course is, what differentiates the behavioristic concept from Locke's more colloquial usage. At other times, however, Locke seemingly uses the term 'consciousness' to mean a higher-order process which, in actuality, pertains to an organism's awareness of its own awareness. In this sense, the concept of 'consciousness' becomes rather complex and problematic. Thorough and excellent discussions of the issues connected with this conception of a higher-order consciousness are available in many philosophy and psychology texts (e.g. Castell, 1965), though these discussions do not provide a final answer to the question as to whether or not awareness of awareness is crucial to processes such as those used in behavior therapy. It can be stated however, that the interjection of the concept of 'awareness of awareness' into any formulation of what occurs in behavior therapy, dictates that the author assume the responsibility for providing data relevant to, and supportive of, his position. This Locke did not do, and it remains for him to demonstrate convincingly (i.e. empirically) that an awareness of awareness is a necessary condition for the efficacious use of behavior therapeutic techniques. In the previous sections, the present authors have presented a description of behavior therapy which does not require the postulation of such a higher-order mental phenomenon (awareness of awareness) but which does assume simple awareness and organismic self-awareness. In the process of behavior therapy, it is not sufficient, of course, for the patient to be able to merely sense external and internal stimuli. The patient must also be able to respond to such stimuli in a manner that permits the therapist to respond in turn by arranging optimal conditions for learning or extinction. Thus, the patient must be able to make an appropriate (consensual) verbal response to, for example, internal autonomic response-produced stimuli when an external conditioned stimulus elicits autonomic arousal. The emission of such verbal responses by a patient is what Locke refers to as 'introspection'. Introspection is rejected by behaviorists insofar as it is used as a substitute for scientific method and insofar as the verbal reports so obtained are interpreted as anything other than indirect and tentative reflection of other processes. Thus, the behavior therapist engaged in systematic desensitization should be ready to admit that, in the absence of evidence of decreased overt avoidance of, or of decreased autonomic response to a feared stimulus, he may have succeeded only in extinguishing the motor-verbal component of the fear response. Only an 'introspectionist' could say that the fear response was extinguished when the sole basis for such a conclusion was the verbal report of the patient. Purposivism and internally determined control (free will) are concepts that are essentially antithetical to behaviorism; that is, they have yet to be defined in a manner consistent with a behavioristic framework since, above all else, behaviorism teaches that an organism's behavior is determined by contingencies of events external to the organism as they interact
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with and influence the physiological state of the organism and its learned and genetic response repertoires. Skinner (1971) discusses the problems associated with these two concepts at great length. The behavioristic conception of self-control does not abandon the deterministic orientation: the self-controlling organism is responding to external and consequent internal stimulation in the form of feedback descriptive of its own responding, and, of course, emitting new responses that are more powerfully and frequently reinforced. The homunculus within the 'black box' implied by the purposive internal control concept simply has no scientific status. Locke may, and indeed does decry psychology as a discipline for not providing evidence supporting his theoretical beliefs. He may claim, as he indeed does, that psychologists have "an 'unscientific' conception of the nature of science" (Locke, 1971, p. 326), but so long as rigor, explicitness, objectivity and parsimony remain as values associated with, and goals of, psychological exploration, it is unlikely that Locke's homunculus will attain scientific status. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS The present authors have argued that the mentalistic language of some behaviorist s while perhaps annoying to purists, is really not relevant to the issues raised by Locke . The conceptualization of behavior therapy offered by Locke, while neither 'correct' nor 'incorrect', is inconclusive since it was demonstrated that the five categories of this conceptualization could be easily reformulated into a behavioristic framework in which the mental phenomena and processes described by Locke are accounted for, but in terms very much consistent with modern behaviorism. This reformulation, then, of Locke's analysis, while neither more nor less 'correct' than the original, is scientifically more acceptable because it is more parsimonious in describing the same events posited by Locke, and is more readily testable. Locke's major argument is that behavior therapy is inconsistent with behaviorism. However, behaviorism, persistently attacked by Locke throughout his article, is not a monolithic entity constituted of a unified set of theoretical propositions, but is a loosely knit framework of principles of behavior. If Locke had argued merely that behavior therapy is inconsistent with 'strict behaviorism' (e.g. 'early Skinnarianism') rather than behaviorism in the more general sense, the authors could not have taken issue with him. Nor could they disagree with the statement that a 'strict' behaviorist studies only observable behavior. But if Locke believes, as he seems to imply, that one cannot study inferred events or processes which have measurable operational referents and remain a behaviorist of any kind, then he is patently wrong. If attention to inferred states and processes (no matter how strictly and rigorously defined) disqualifies one as a 'strict behaviorist', sobeit, But the only alternative to strict behaviorism need not be mentalism, and the inclusion of inferred physiological states and processes in the study of human behavior should not open the floodgates to superfluous, undefined, unoperationalized, hypothetical constructs such as those proposed by Locke. Locke (1971, p. 325) stated that "the understanding of enormously complex actions such as thinking and reasoning is not aided by arbitrarily attaching the label 'conditioned stimuli ' to the tools (words) man uses to accomplish these tasks", and it is within this brief statement that the crux of our opposition to Locke's position may be found. In the first place, understanding is not the only, nor necessarily the primary, recognized goal of science. Even if Locke's conceptualization of behavior therapy did aid in our understanding of
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behavior therapeutic processes, similar mentalistic conceptualizations have hindered psychologists in the past in their ability to predict and control human behavior (c.f. Skinner, 1964; Ullmann and Krasner, 1969), and any advantages in understanding offered by formulations such as Locke's if, in fact, any exist, may well be negated by their disadvantages. Secondly, the 'complexity' of the process described by Locke has nothing to do with the appropriateness of a behavioral analysis of them, and thirdly, the attachment of the label 'conditioned stimuli' to the words that man uses is far from arbitrary (Staats and Staats, 1964). Finally, Locke fails completely to demonstrate how the understanding of these 'enormously complex actions' is any more aided by arbitrarily attaching labels like 'consciousness', 'purpose', etc. to them. In other words, if behavioristic analyses of these phenomena are inadequate (a point not conceded), resortment to mentalistic explanations is no more satisfactory, and, in fact, is even less satisfactory because of the introduction of surplus meaning. The present authors cannot deny the existence of 'mental' phenomena in general, nor the specific concepts discussed by Locke. The existence of such phenomena is not at issue; what is important, however, is the manner in which mentalistic concepts are defined, and, regardless of the definition, the necessity of using them in the predicting, controlling, and understanding of human behavior. REFERENCES CASTELL A. (1965) The Self in Philosophy. Macmillan, New York. HOMANS G. C. (1961) Social Behavior: Its Elementary Forms, pp. 292-345. Harcourt, New York. HULL C. G. (1964) Knowledge and purpose as habit mechanism. Human Learning (Ed. A. E. STAATS), pp. 148-152. Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York. LOCKE E. A. (1971) Is 'behavior therapy' behavioristic? (An analysis ofWolpe's psychotherapeutic methods). Psychol. Bull. 76, 5, 318-327. SKINl'iER B. F. (1964) Behaviorism at fifty, Behaviorism and Phenomenology (Ed. T. W. WANl'i), pp. 79-108. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. SKINNER B. F. (1971) Beyond Freedom and Dignity. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. STAATS A. W. and STAATS C. K. (1964) Complex Human Behavior, pp. 115-258. Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York. ULLMANN L. P. and KRASNER L. (1969) A Psychological Approach to Abnormal Behavior, pp. 106-171. Prentice-Hall, New Jersey. WOLPE J. (1958) Psychotherapy by Reciprocal Inhibition. Stanford University Press, Stanford.