Abstract
It is only in recent years that self-injurious behavior has been viewed as a complex behavior pattern that under certain circumstances may have specific functional value. Because the behavior pattern appears so paradoxical and contrary to very basic characteristics of the behavior of organisms (i.e., that they tend to avoid painful stimuli), we must examine very carefully the controlling variables for self-injurious behavior as well as the many subtypes of self-injurious behavior. However there is also a danger in oversimplifying the understanding of self-injurious behavior. To label it as functional and purposeful provides a perspective superior to viewing it simply as a psychotic behavior but also lends itself to a simplistic and naïve understanding as well. That is, self-injurious behavior represents a classification of behavior, and therefore, one cannot assume that the causal and maintaining factors are (1) similar across individuals, (2) consistent for the same individual at different points in time, and (3) similar for different topographies of self-injurious behavior both within and across individuals.
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Romanczyk, R.G., Lockshin, S., O’Connor, J. (1992). Psychophysiology and Issues of Anxiety and Arousal. In: Luiselli, J.K., Matson, J.L., Singh, N.N. (eds) Self-injurious Behavior. Disorders of Human Learning, Behavior, and Communication. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-9130-2_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-9130-2_4
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