Does Problem Behavior Just Happen? Does It Matter?

This article questions· ~hether it is useful to think of problem behavior as caused, and whether causal information about problem behavior is a necessary prerequisite to changing it. Psychoanalytic, behavioral, systemic, and solutionRfocused approaches to the issue are discussed briefly. Taking the perspective that the cause or causes of a particular client's problem behavior cmmot be known, it is argued that attempts to discover them may be unnecessary, misguided, or even counterproductive. It may not even ~e necessary to know what the problem behavior is in order to change it. Does Problem Behavior Jnst Happen? Does it Matter? The question of how people acquire the kinds of problem behavior that bring them to therapists has always seemed important, if only because of its apparent relevance to arranging for change. Many psychologists believe that the labeling of troubling or troublesome behavior as abnormal serves the useful p_urpose of singling it out from other, presumably normal, behavior. Once brought from ground into figure, called attention to, identified, categorized, and otherwise intellectually separated from the behavior stream, it can be addressed. There has been an ongoing debate (e. g., Szasz, 1961; Ullmann & Krasner, 1975) as to whether or not there are actual scientific dividends to be gained from classifying behavior based on the DSM taxonomy-by-ballot. The economic dividends are clearer: the more conditions, syndromes, and disorders that can be identified, the wider the range of behavior that may be labeled abnormal, and the greater the range of change-inducing services to be reimbursed. Even therapists who are concerned with problem behavior, rather than the categories it is purported to represent, frequently view such behavior as abnonnal and create questions for themselves such as, "How did this come about?" For example, if a young man can't stop thinking of the face of his beloved, his behavior requires no explanation; but if he can't stop thinking of her feet then a cause is sought for his "obsession" or "fetish" (Krasner & Ullmann, 1973; Ullmann & Krasner, 1975). Over the years, a number of different answers have been proposed to the question of how problem behavior comes about. These answers have had strikingly different effects on the behavior of therapists, and, thus, on their clients, who, in