ABSTRACT
This chapter makes some use of cognitive-behavioural approaches because of the trends in empirical research, not because of any prior ideological commitment. An influential review of child protection research described the methodologies typically used to evaluate behavioural approaches as 'streets ahead' of the typical means of assessing the impact of other methods. It argues that had it taken opportunities to debate and act upon the positive and the negative findings of effectiveness research from the last forty-odd years. The chapter outlines the stimulus-association conditioning and its effects, then turns to another major theory of learning, this time concerned with stimulus-response associations: the influence of consequences on behaviour. Cognitive-behavioural approaches have a well-deserved reputation for evaluative rigour, but this attribute depends upon attention to certain guidelines. As regards the psychological underpinnings of these roles, we should, as a matter of urgency, replace the body of theory and research on which we have traditionally relied with a cognitive-behavioural formulation.
