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A Social History of Behaviour Modification in Australia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 October 2014

Robin C. Winkler  and
Len Krasner
Robin C. Winkler
Affiliation:
University of Western, Australia
Len Krasner
Affiliation:
Stanford University
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Abstract

This paper was delivered by Dr R. Winkler as an Invited Address at the Australian Behaviour Modification Association Annual Conference, Sydney, 13 May 1986. The article is published in tribute to Robin Winkler with the normal editorial requirements concerning references and stylistic issues being waived.

Type
Research Article
Information
Behaviour Change , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , September 1987 , pp. 11 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 1987

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References

Notes

On reviewing a draft of this paper, Syd Lovibond suggested corrections of some bibliographic data on him. However, Robin had submitted the paper before changes could be made. Notes 1 through 5 are Syd's clarifications and comments:

1 Not so. I had never heard of U.T. Place until 1953 when he visited me in Melbourne and asked me to apply for a lectureship in Adelaide. I went to Melbourne in 1949 on the advice of Amy Wheaton, Head of the Department of Social Science (Social Work) in Adelaide to do a third year in Social Work. Amy suggested that I should look into the possibility of taking a degree in psychology. I had become dissatisfied with social work's lack, etc.

2 I did not complete an honours thesis on water divining. This was my second-year thesis, which was published in the AJP in 1953. My honours thesis was on schizophrenic thought disorder (published in the AJP, 1954).

3 I had been working on schizophrenic thought disorder at Royal Park for some time before I met McConaghy. I was getting nowhere with assessments based on language, and decided to work with perceptual materials. I was familiar with Rapaport's version of Goldstein's Object Sorting Test and began with these test materials. My principal contribution here was to develop a method of quantifying the degree of departure from normality in schizophrenic thinking, and I used Pavlov's concepts to develop a theory of the mechanisms of thought disorder and Sorting Test performance. (I wrote a manual for the Object Sorting Scales which, together with the test materials, was distributed by ACER.)

4 I believe it would be more accurate to say: “He was the subject of a good deal of hostility from both psychiatrists and clinical psychologists” (indifference from academic psychologists).

5 What I moved quickly to establish was Australia's first postgraduate degree course in experimental clinical psychology, and the first clinical degree course with Honours degree entry. The principal subject was described (by me) as “Experimental Analysis and Modification of Problem Behaviour”, but this title was soon changed to “Experimental Clinical Psychology”. The course description read: “The application of the principles of experimental psychology to the understanding and direct modification of a range of clinical problems… Indirect methods of behavioural modification through verbal and non-verbal interpersonal influences…”

The other courses were Clinical Research Methods and Techniques; Professional Practice of Psychology; Special Problems; Interviewing Technique; The Application of Social Psychology to Professional and Clinical Problems; Research Project; Special Graduate Seminar; Psychodiagnosis and Clinical Assessment.

I believe it is quite unjustifiable to describe the course as a “course in behaviour modification”.

— Syd Lovibond.

6 Day's review notes the paucity of applied research during the period studied. Howevever, this is in large part an artifact of the journals he reviewed. As he himself notes, much of the applied research was published in specialist journals. This is certainly true of the behaviour modification research of the late 1960s and early 1970s, which Day, in effect, ignored.