by Angela Cathey, MA, LPC (Owner, Behavior-Behavior.org & Evolve, by ENSO Group)
Behavior-Behavior was founded as a part of a movement to strengthen the roots of our science and practice as behavioral scientists and practitioners.
As a field, we have moved too far under the conditions that influence our training and funding as researchers and practitioners. Training programs more and more spend significant time training their students on particular treatment protocols and their components, without spending adequate time teaching students what drives these protocols – the principles, methodology, and contingencies that move our field.
As practitioners and researchers, it becomes our responsibility to obtain a deeper level of skill and to do so in environments that don’t typically support the time and cost needed to keep abreast of important developments in our field.
Behavior-Behavior is an effort to make strengthening and deepening your practice based on principles and the latest research more workable for practicing clinicians and researchers. We offer news, practice tools, online training, and consultation for the discriminating clinician and researcher.
Can you recommend a good intro text e.g. ABCs of Human Behavior by Ramnero & Torneke?
Hi Mat, The ABC’s of behavior is a great starting place. I’d also recommend looking at writing that orients to the extensions of BA through various levels of systems. Given I’m familiar with your interests in verbal behavior and organizations, I’d also recommend Mastering the Clinical Conversation for RFT and VB in-the-moment level analyses. For larger systems, I’d recommend having a look at Bernard Guerin’s work on Analyzing Social Behavior and Ramona Houmanfours work on VB in organizations. There’s some great work on systems of contingencies in organizations that you might appreciate under “Behavioral Systems Analysis” in the Organizational Behavior Management world.
Hope this helps!
If you’re looking for further explanation of metaphor, I highly recommend Lakoff and Johnson’s “Philosophy in the Flesh” and “The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities” by Giles Fauconnier. Definitely read the former before the latter, as the latter is much more dense.