Many researchers and clinicians believe that the therapeutic relationship is essential in bringing about clinical change. Empirical research to support this contention is scarce in part due to the difficulty of specifying and measuring theoretically derived mechanisms of change and the important dimensions of the client-therapist relationship. Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP; Kohlenberg & Tsai, 1991) is a behavioral treatment that delineates how the therapeutic relationship brings about clinical change in clear and measurable terms. While initial research has been conducted to demonstrating the effectiveness of FAP with different populations, the purported mechanism of clinical change in FAP has not been sufficiently documented. This study describes the creation of a behavioral coding system (the Functional Analytic Psychotherapy Rating Scale; FAPRS) to identify and specify the components believed to be essential in bringing about client behavior change in FAP. Interobserver agreement values indicated moderate to high levels of reliability for the coding system. Implications for future tests of FAP's proposed mechanism of change and the validity of the coding system are discussed.

Clinical military psychologists (CMPs) hold one of the most difficult positions within professional psychology. Given their exposure to a variety of environmental, physical, psychosocial, and emotional stressors, professional burnout (PB) can be a serious issue for CMPs. In order to (a) protect job satisfaction, (b) increase professional confidence, (c) facilitate a long and rewarding military career, and (d) ensure competent care is provided to our clients, a two-pronged approach of CMPs taking care of themselves on the one hand, and the military providing effective assessment, prevention, and intervention, on the other hand, is needed. Such an approach to protecting the military's limited mental health resources could ultimately ensure that service members receive proper care. In this article, the authors discuss the challenges experienced by CMPs as potential contributors to PB during all three phases of the deployment cycle. Several recommendations are offered for addressing such challenges.

Psychology has focused too much on reducing symptoms of distress and ameliorating behavioral problems rather than attending to the rewarding, engaging, and good side of human life. This article offers a radical behavioral view of some of the epistemic issues relevant to the design of this new area of research, and it proposes a rapprochement between humanistic and behavior analytic psychology. Examples drawn from both humanistic and behavior analytic research are given to illustrate the utility of a deterministic view for a generative science of positive psychology and to offer an alternative conceptualization of control. The article considers how to design environments that evoke positive behavior from those within them and how to give individuals the skills to control their own behavior and circumstances in ways that will maximize their quality of life.

Persons with dementia experience continual declines in a number of abilities. Language abilities are particularly hard hit and become increasingly impaired as the underlying disease progresses. These language impairments make verbal communication very challenging for family and professional caregivers. As a result, caregivers may inadvertently punish verbal behavior, thereby exacerbating the deterioration of verbal repertoires. Although the topography of language impairments associated with dementia have been well described, less empirical work has been conducted concerning how to minimize these impairments and their deleterious effects. In 1957 B.F. Skinner outlined his conceptualization of language and cognition in his book Verbal Behavior. This paper will explore the implications of Skinner's Verbal Behavior for studying communication impairments associated with dementia. Keywords : elderly; dementia; verbal behavior; communication Overview of Dementia "Dementia" is a generic term that describes the progressive decline in a number of cognitive abilities such as attention, memory, language, perception, and reasoning that interferes with daily functioning (APA, 2000). Dementia can also result in behavioral changes such as wandering or aggression, declines in self-care skills, and mood disturbances such as depression or anxiety. Dementia can be caused by a number of different, irreversible causes (e.g., Alzheimer's disease, vascular disease, Pick's disease) as well as reversible causes (e.g., vitamin B12 deficiency, medication overdose). Dementia is a serious public health concern in the United States. If one considers all causes of dementia, approximately 6-10% of individuals over the age of 65 suffer from dementia, with Alzheimer's Disease (AD) accounting for approximately 65% of all cases (Hendrie, 1997). Age is the number one risk factor for developing dementia, which is particularly concerning given the rapidly aging population of the United States. It is projected that 13 to 15 million Americans could suffer from AD alone by the year 2050 if no cure is found (Hebert, Scherr, Bienias, Bennet, & Evans, 2003). Language deficits associated with dementia. Language deficits (i.e., aphasia) associated with dementia can take on various forms/topographies, including receptive and expressive language deficits. Language deficits in the early stages of dementia are characterized by pronounced difficulties with speech production as opposed to comprehension (Levine, 2006). Common early stage deficits include word finding deficits (i.e., anomia), poor spontaneous writing, indefinite references ("it", "those", or "thing"), repetition of words or ideas, and difficulty understanding complex language such as metaphors or analogies (APA, 2000; Kempler, 1991; Orange, 2001). As the disease progresses deficits such as empty content, inappropriate word substitutions, difficulties following multi-step commands, poor topic maintenance and inappropriate topic shifts, reduced reading comprehension, frequent digression from conversatio...

Experimentation was conducted comparing videotape self-modeling and videotape peer/other modeling to self-directed mental rehearsal (a covert modeling procedure) and a no-training (physical practice) control condition in training a mechanical device assembly task. Eighty male and female college students were introduced to the assembly task in a timed pretest trial and then videotaped performing the assembly task in a second trial. Over the next 4 days, subjects were randomly assigned to training conditions and repeatedly trained and tested in the mechanical device assembly task. The effects of training methods upon assembly times, selfefficacy expectations regarding assembly task performance, and subjective impressions of the nature and usefulness of training were examined. Superior assembly performance over initial training and at 4 months posttraining follow-up was observed for the self-directed mental rehearsal training condition and discussed.