Book

This compendium consists of papers representing a multidisciplinary application of behavioral and interbehavioral science in clinical practice. The reason for subtitling the book, a Multidisciplinary Approach is that it embraces the broader disciplines of medicine, technology, education, and mental health instead of just confining the applications to one discipline, say, in mental health. The real value of scientific principles, whether emerging from psychology or its allied sciences, is when its power of measurability, predictability and controllability are assets in areas outside the normal scientific arenas. In this compendium, such examples are in forensic psychology, computer gaming, addiction, and ADHD. While forensic psychological evaluations, in theory and practice, borrow from esteemed theories of psychology, mostly from psychoanalysis, these theories limit the validity of answers most desired by the courts: will the defendant do the crime again? Import of behavioral and interbehavioral analyses provides a viable framework to answer this question and serve and better service the judicial process. Similarly with computer gaming. It is one thing to superficially opine that game players “transfer” their virtual avatar game playing to real life situations, such as driving vehicles dangerously. But how does that really happen? The chapter on “Dangers of Multiplayer Online Gaming addresses this equivocation. A similar imperative for operationalization applies to chapters on Adult Children of Addiction and Why Do Couples Argue?