Disordered and Deviant Behavior: Learning Gone Awry

This book describes several programs of research into psychological disorder and deviance conducted by author Alfred B. Heilbrun, Jr. during his distinguished career as a university professor. Each program is guided by the assumption that disorder and deviance follow from faulty learning experiences that result in dysfunctional acquisition of behavior, and from ineffective efforts at resolution or compensations. Learning principles are applied to a range of abnormalities from mild character or personality problems to stress-related somatic disorders to the most serious of psychotic disabilities. The systematic studies in each program provide many new empirically based perspectives on disorder.