ABSTRACT
Just as diverse theories have very different perspectives about the process of therapeutic change, theories also present sharply contrasting viewpoints about the way that environments both initially shape and subsequently maintain psychological disturbance. Some therapists assign more weight to a patient’s past environment than to present ones when speculating about the origin of psychological disturbance. To others, current rather than past environments are conceived as both the principal causes and the reinforcers that maintain psychopathology. Still others place emphasis upon nonenvironmental (e.g., biological and genetic forces) influences in the development of psychological disturbance.
