Journals Information
Universal Journal of Psychology(CEASE PUBLICATION) Vol. 2(3), pp. 103 - 107
DOI: 10.13189/ujp.2014.020301
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The Murder of Therapy: Why Clients Don鈥檛 Get Better
Steven Bell *
Emeritus Professor of Psychology, Psychology Department, Berry College, Mt. Berry, 30149, Georgia, USA
ABSTRACT
This is an article describing and analyzing my four months working as a Psychologist in the Occupied Territories known as the West Bank, Palestine. While I speak of two families and two children, this is done to make the story easier to tell. Actually, I worked with several families and multiple children. I discovered the power and challenge of a collectivist culture to applying learning theory principles. The work of Professors Nathan Azrin (Azrin, 1974), Richard Foxx (Foxx, 1982), and Marc Gold (Gold, 1974) was basic to my therapeutic approach. Azrin and Foxx were able to bridge the gap between modifying the behavior of laboratory animals to the teaching of humans and their families to decrease negative actions and increase positive ones in two primary ways. In the instances reported in this paper parent of the individuals successfully though hesitantly raised their expectations and were taught to break down the tasks into more manageable steps. Marc Gold expressly focused on Moderately Intellectual Disabled Individuals. Where this paper is different from hundreds of other behavioral modification reports is the unique context of a collectivist Palestinian culture struggling to survive under a military occupation. The collectivist imperative required the mothers (who were cast by the culture into the primary distributors of rewards and task difficulty). Simultaneously, because of the military occupation the mothers were unable to travel (from Bethlehem to Jerusalem) to institutions and agencies which could have provided guidance and support.
KEYWORDS
Intellectual Disabilities, Overprotection, Learned Helpless, Collectivist Culture, Behavior Modification
Cite This Paper in IEEE or APA Citation Styles
(a). IEEE Format:
[1] Steven Bell , "The Murder of Therapy: Why Clients Don鈥檛 Get Better ," Universal Journal of Psychology(CEASE PUBLICATION), Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 103 - 107, 2014. DOI: 10.13189/ujp.2014.020301.
(b). APA Format:
Steven Bell (2014). The Murder of Therapy: Why Clients Don鈥檛 Get Better . Universal Journal of Psychology(CEASE PUBLICATION), 2(3), 103 - 107. DOI: 10.13189/ujp.2014.020301.