Behavioural Assessment Techniques

Assessing Target Behaviours

The process of defining and measuring target behaviours is essential to behavioural assessment. Vague complaints must be expressed as specific quantifiable behaviours. For instance, anger might include responses such as hitting walls, refusing to talk or other specific behaviours. The client's goals must be defined in terms of those specific behavioural changes that would occur if treatment were effective.

Target behaviour selection can be complicated by the complexity with which many responses are expressed. Behaviourists have long recognized that many clinical problems involve responses that cannot be readily observed. Some responses such as intrusive thoughts or aversive mood states are private by nature. Others, such as sexual responses, may be private and unobservable due to social convention. Many clinical [Page 130]complaints may include both observable and private responses. For example, depressed mood and suicidal ideation might be accompanied by crying, or other overt behaviours. Public and private responses may not always appear consistent. For example, an agoraphobic client may enter a shopping mall during an assessment but may do so only with extreme subjective distress.

Cone (1978) suggested that the bioinformational theory of emotion developed by Lang (1971) is useful for conceptualizing clinical problems. Lang (1971) asserted that emotional responses occur in three separate but loosely coupled response systems. These are the cognitive/linguistic, overt behavioural, and psychophysiological systems. A given response such as a panic attack may be divided into physiological responses such as increased heart rate and respiration, cognitive responses such as thoughts about dying or passing out, and overt behavioural responses such as escape from the situation, sitting down, or leaning against a wall for support. Ideally, each response mode should be assessed, there being no a priori reason to value one modality over another (Lang, 1971). Discrepancies are best considered with regard to the particular client, the goals of therapy, and ethical considerations. For example, it may be wise to take verbal reports of pain seriously even if they do not match evidence of tissue damage or physiological arousal.

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