Transitions to Safety in “Obsessive” Thinking: Covert Links of Operant Chains in Clinical Behavior Analysis

Abstract

This article provides a tentative account of a much-discussed clinical phenomenon called “thought-action fusion” and its relation to “obsessive” thinking, in terms of a general process interpretation of the determination of operant and respondent behavior derived from experimental analysis. In an interpretive approach originated by B. F. Skinner (e.g., 1953; 1957) the present account invokes plausible, untested causal relations among response-produced private events and behavior occurring in operant chains, and illustrates the more general utility of this practice for the understanding problematic thinking in clinical behavior analysis. Finally, a case is made for the potential therapeutic efficacy of providing simplified versions of such natural science-based interpretations of the determination of troublesome patterns of covert behavior to psychotherapy clients themselves.