ABSTRACT
Token economy regimes represent a form of behavioural engineering which was, in theory, applicable to all types of psychotic symptoms. The principle on which token economy regimes were based was operant conditioning, in which the immediate rewarding of desirable behaviour was considered to be the essential ingredient. Social anxiety and deficits in social functioning are generally viewed as core problems for individuals with psychotic disorders. Life skills training is a broader concept than social skills training and involves training patients in the basic skills required to live as independently as possible. Self-instructional training is a form of psychological treatment in which patients are taught to ‘talk to themselves’ in order to help them organise, regulate and control their own behaviour. This procedure was first used by Meichenbaum and Cameron to improve the performance of schizophrenic patients on a variety of cognitive tasks and to reduce psychotic speech.
