Clinical behavior: are the dispositional categories serving to help maintain healthcare and psychotherapeutic adherence?

Abstract

The formulation of coherent psychological models to address problems related to health care, especially with regard to the lack of adherence to health and psychotherapeutic treatment, is hampered, as far as the behavioral clinic is concerned, by the rejection on the part of radically environmentalist behavioral variants of the theoretical and evaluative use of dispositional categories—personality traits and health beliefs in the context of this article. It is suggested that such use is beneficial and not inconsistent with the premises of a behavioral approach, so the aforementioned constructs are interpreted in terms of learning theory and it is shown how this reformulation, embodied in Staats' theory, can Contribute to the construction of alternatives that facilitate the examination, prediction and modification of the client's attitudes in the biopsychosocial framework of their health habits.