A brief physical restraint procedure combined with differential reinforcement of incompatible behaviour was used to reduce the tantrum behaviour of a five-year-old severely intellectually disabled girl in a classroom setting. Daily frequency recording of tantrum behaviour demonstrated a marked reduction of tantrums in classroom settings following intervention which was maintained at followup. Staff also reported concomitant increases in the subject's participation in class activities. Spontaneous generalization of reductions in tantrum behaviour to non-programmed settings and staff was not found.

Two case studies are described where behavioural strategies, including response prevention and controlled drinking, were used to successfully treat chronic compulsive polydipsia where traditional medical management had failed. The improvement during treatment and at the 3-month follow-up was reflected not only in reduced fluid intake but also in the reduction of associated thirst symptoms and psychological distress. The implications of these results for treatment of polydipsia and non-compliance with fluid restrictions, particularly among dialysis patients, are discussed.

The strength of behavioural marital therapy is seen to lie in its close links between theory, assessment and therapy. Issues raised by contributions to this special issue are reviewed as they bear on each of these domains and the implications they have for the next decade of research and practice are discussed. Some problems with the prevailing cognitive-behavioural models of marital functioning are noted, the difficulties of establishing effective clinical use of research innovations in assessment are lamented, and the need for innovation in therapy to meet the demands of diverse client groups is considered. An appeal is made for more attention to be given to maintenance and transfer (generalisation) issues. Finally, it is suggested that the decade of the 1990s become the decade of prevention research.

While chronic worry is typically associated with cautious and harm-avoidant behaviours, there is evidence that people high in chronic worry are characterised by negative urgency (NU), that is, the propensity to act rashly when experiencing negative affect. The present study was a preliminary examination of how rash action and impulsive decision-making manifest for chronic worriers compared to individuals low in worry. In total, 93 participants who endorsed high and low worry and NU responded to open-ended questions about their experience of NU on Amazon Mechanical Turk. Themes were identified using a data-driven approach. Participants high in chronic worry endorsed significantly greater NU compared to those low in worry. However, the types of NU behaviours were similar across participants, with a majority of responses involving initiating interpersonal conflict. Other themes included spending money, excessive eating, alcohol use, and aggressive behaviours. The manifestations of NU were largely consistent with those described in the model of NU. Although individuals higher in chronic worry engaged in NU behaviours to a greater extent, the types of behaviours were similar to those reported by people lower in worry. More research is needed to understand the characteristics of NU-motivated behaviour in individuals high in chronic worry.

Background: Consumer perceptions of care are a key measure of service quality. The Consumer Perceptions of Care (CPoC) survey is often used to assess patients’ evaluations of the quality of services received. Aims: The study explored the factor structure of the CPoC, the relationships between perceived quality of care, empowerment, perceived treatment outcomes, and symptom change, as well as the effect of allowing patients to self-identify during the CPoC survey on their ratings of perceptions of care. Methods: In the first phase of the current study, 2,125 psychiatric inpatients were surveyed about their perceptions of care, and their symptoms were also measured at both admission and discharge. The second phase examined 720 inpatients who had given consent so that perceptions of care could be compared with outcome data. Results: Increased levels of empowerment were associated with favourable ratings of perceived treatment outcomes. Although perceived treatment outcomes and empowerment were correlated with actual symptom change, these correlations were small. Furthermore, the influence of self-identification on ratings of perceptions of care was found to be small. Conclusions: Examining patients’ perceived and actual treatment outcomes may provide mental health service providers with a more nuanced perspective of the hospital experiences of their patients.

In focussing on the relationship between cognition and sports performance, sports psychology is following a trend evident in other areas in psychology. Sports psychology research has borrowed conceptually and methodologically from cognitive-behavioural researchers within clinical psychology. This article reviews five areas of research: imagery; self talk; self efficacy; attentional focus and concentration; and decision making. Of these topics, imagery has attracted the most research interest, and strategies of mental rehearsal are frequently used by athletes.

Attempts to apply the theories of self talk and self efficacy to sports performance appear promising. The self efficacy research has demonstrated that expectations of success influence performance. As yet, little attention has been paid to the second part of Bandura's theory: the effect of outcome expectations on performance.

The sporting environment is often complex with the athlete frequently required to make numerous decisions. Decision making has been studied in a range of settings (e.g., medical decision making, jury decisions etc.) but has been largely ignored by sports psychologists. Issues relating to the decision making of the athlete are discussed.

The alternating treatments design which is increasingly being used in single subject research is described. This design allows the differential effectiveness of two or more treatments to be investigated by presenting each of them separately in closely spaced sessions, with the order of presentation alternated. Consideration is given to the types of behavior and contexts that are most appropriate for use with this design and also to factors important for ensuring its effectiveness and the valid interpretation of the resulting data.

The fourth World Congress of Behaviour Therapy held at the Gold Coast was a great success as the first worldwide congress on behaviour therapy in South East Asia and Oceania countries. The fact that an academic association can sponsor a world congress is a good index of the level of development of a host academic association as a leader in that field. We can say that the ABMA has come to play a leading and important role in behaviour therapy in the world.

Lovibond's paper (Lovibond, 1993), based on his keynote address at the Fourth World Congress of Behaviour Therapy, is interesting for an understanding of not only the current status of behaviour therapy in Australia, but also for typical courses of the development of behaviour therapy in many countries where behaviour therapy has not been a major clinical approach, having been “imported” from countries where behaviour therapy has been highly developed from early times.

The courses of the development of behaviour therapy in Australia and Japan are considerably similar, that is, clinical psychologists in both countries have tried to develop a scientific clinical psychology since the dawning of behaviour therapy, as Lovibond (1993) has pointed out. However, there are some differences between these countries on the current status of behaviour therapy. In order to compare the courses of the development and the current status of behaviour therapy in both countries, an introduction to a brief history of behaviour therapy in Japan might be helpful.

A chronic case of insomnia treated by paradoxical intention is reported. All previous attempts at treatment, including progressive muscle relaxation, had failed. When a behavioural analysis was conducted and treatment was selected according to the analysis, full recovery resulted and was maintained through long follow-up. The case study illustrates a clinically useful way to choose the treatment technique when many techniques exist to treat a presenting problem.

Prior to CBT treatment, nineteen obsessive–compulsive washers were administered Jones and Menzies's (1998a) obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) Origins Questionnaire (OOQ) in an attempt to examine the relevance of associative learning pathways in the aetiology of the disorder. The open-ended nature of the questions allows for the distinction between classical conditioning events and traumatic events in which no identifiable unconditioned stimulus can be found. On the basis of subjects' responses on the OOQ, associative learning was shown to account for only five cases of OC washing. Of note, depression was shown to facilitate the onset of OCD in these individuals. Every subject who experienced a relevant indirect learning event and went on to develop OCD, revealed they were experiencing depression at the time. No relationship was found between the mode of OCD acquisition and subsequent response to treatment. Finally, the data revealed that subjects who identified washing/cleaning concerns at the onset of their disorder, as distinct from subjects who identified other OC concerns (e.g. checking, hoarding) at the onset of their disorder, scored similarly on current level of severity and degree of intractability.

A focus on “positive psychology” in nonclinical populations provides an opportunity to improve psychological wellbeing for both community and clinical samples. Identification and assessment of stimuli associated with positive affect may be of particular value for promoting wellbeing. This was the purpose of the current study. Based on self-reports of 157 children (8 to 11 years), a Positive Affect Schedule for Youth (PAS-Y) was developed. This measure was subsequently psychometrically evaluated with a sample of 320 children. Demonstrating construct validity, the PAS-Y was found to factor into two scales comprising a Natural stimuli factor and a Non-natural stimuli factor. Convergent validity and divergent validity were demonstrated through significant associations with positive affect and no associations with negative affect, respectively. Internal consistency and split-half reliability analyses demonstrated good reliability for the PAS-Y. It was concluded that the PAS-Y provides a valid and reliable measure for the assessment of positive affect experiences in youth.

This paper reviews studies of the application of self-control procedures to the symptoms of schizophrenia. The authors argue that, while there are few well-controlled studies on their effectiveness, there are many cognitive-behavioural techniques which show promise for assisting clients to develop greater mastery over a number of symptoms. Surveys also show that many persons with schizophrenia spontaneously use their own methods to gain some control over their symptoms. While much further research is needed in this area, clinicians need to empower clients with schizophrenia to explore and enhance their self-control skills.

This pilot study evaluated the addition of 1 to 6 sessions of cognitive–behavioural therapy (CBT) for patients of a mental health acute assessment and treatment team. A pre-post design for 12 months of consecutive referrals used the Health of the Nation Outcome Scale (HONOS), Depression, Anxiety, Stress Scales (DASS), and patient satisfaction. Forty-two patients who attended CBT were compared with 19 patients who were referred but did not attend therapy due to refusal, referral to another service, or loss to follow-up. With a mean of 3.2 sessions, HONOS scores improved by a mean of 1.02 SD in patients who attended CBT and 0.72 SD in nonattenders. DASS results showed a mean reduction of 0.55 SD in symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress in those who attended. Patients' overall satisfaction averaged 4.7/5. Results showed brief CBT was feasible in this setting, with high patient satisfaction and some evidence of improved patient outcomes compared with usual care.

The study was a randomised controlled trial evaluating the effectiveness of the Group Triple P Program for Chinese immigrant parents living in New Zealand. Sixty-seven Chinese immigrant parents of a 5- to 9-year-old child with disruptive behaviour problems were randomly allocated to either an intervention or a waitlist group. Parents completed measures of child adjustment problems, general parenting practices, parenting practices in children's academic lives, parental adjustment, parental teamwork, and family relationships at pre-, post-, and 4-month follow-up. Intervention group ratings of programme satisfaction were collected following programme completion. Significant short-term intervention effects were found for improvements in child behaviour, parenting practices, parental teamwork, and parenting in the child academic context. All intervention effects, except for parental teamwork, were maintained at 4-month follow-up. There were no significant intervention effects for parental adjustment, however, medium effect sizes were found at post-intervention and follow-up. A high level of programme satisfaction was reported.

Problems associated with alcohol consumption among young people are reviewed from an integrated biopsychosocial model. It is argued that young people drink differently from older people, and that traditional models of addiction and treatment work better with older populations than with younger ones. Social, psychological and biological factors associated with development and remission of young people's drinking are reviewed. Suggestions for approaches to early interventions are developed.

Research carried out in several Anglo-Saxon countries shows that many undergraduates identify oral sex and anal sex as examples of abstinent behaviour, while many others consider kissing and masturbation as examples of having sex. The objective of this research was to investigate whether a sample of Spanish students gave similar replies. Seven hundred and fifty undergraduates (92% aged under 26, 67.6% women) produced examples or definitions of the term ‘abstinence’. Spanish students made similar errors to those observed in the Anglo-Saxon samples, in that behaviours that were abstinent from a preventive point of view (masturbating and sex without penetration) were not considered as such, while a number of students reported oral sex as abstinent behaviour. The results suggest that the information on risky and preventive sexual behaviour should cease to use ambiguous or euphemistic expressions and use vocabulary that is clear and comprehensible to everyone.

The theory of evolution has transformed biology from a largely descriptive science to a causal one. However, few psychologists have a thorough understanding of evolution. As a result, psychologists tend not to consider evolutionary explanations for the phenomena they investigate, or they present flawed evolutionary arguments that violate fundamental principles of evolutionary theory. The primary objective of this article is to outline the basic principles of evolution as they relate to the study of behaviour in general. The article then goes on to demonstrate the application of evolutionary theory to the study of human behaviour in particular, and concludes with a discussion of problems that can occur when evolutionary theory is applied incorrectly.

Three adults with haemophilia participated in a study designed to determine the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioural techniques in the alleviation of chronic arthritic pain. The intervention comprised cognitive-coping skills, primarily relaxation training and guided imagery techniques, as well as identifying and altering antecedents and consequences that may have influenced their pain experience. The dependent measures included visual analogue rating scales, the Arthritis Impact Measurements Scale, the Beck Depression Inventory and pedometer readings. All three men showed significant reductions in pain, which were largely maintained at six-month follow-up. This study supports earlier findings with this population, and highlights the importance of monitoring the implementation of independent measures.