Let us begin, as before, by relocating ourselves on the assessment diagram (see Figure 6.1, p. 153). Response control techniques are mainly used where the answer to the question: ‘Are target behaviours already in repertoire at any significant level?’ is ‘No’. That is, when clients have either: (1) never learned to perform the types of response which it is thought are needed to address their problems; or (2) where such responses have been learned in the past, but are now lost – as with certain psychiatric conditions and the effects of institutionalisation; or (3) where, for whatever reason, the responses occur infrequently or at a low level, and operant shaping is likely to be too labour-intensive an approach.