Behavior Analysis of Psychotic Disorders: Scientific Dead End or Casualty of the Mental Health Political Economy?

Abstract

Behavior analysis, once a promising approach to understanding and treating severe mental disorders, has been obscured by the biomedical model of mental illness and its ubiquitous psychotropic drugs. The present paper gives a brief overview of behavioral research on psychotic disorders followed by a critical review of the prevailing biomedical model including psychiatric diagnoses, anti-psychotic medications, clinical outcomes, and adverse effects of drug treatment. This paper also examines ideological, political, and economic mechanisms of control that have blocked the application of behavior analysis with severe mental disorders.