Behavioral Therapy for “Apathy” of Hospitalized Schizophrenics

Abstract

20 chronic schizophrenic adult female patients in a ward of a hospital for the mentally ill were placed on schedules of reinforcement designed to establish or strengthen behaviors incompatible with the diagnostic statement “apathetic.” Another 20 patients on the same ward received standard ward therapy. 30 behavioral samples, spaced evenly in ½-hr. intervals, were obtained for each of the patients for 3 5-day periods: before, during, and on termination of the program. Apathy was defined as the degree to which a patient at the time of any of the 30 daily observations engaged in one—and only one—clearly discernible behavior. While the degree of apathy was equal for experimentals and controls at the beginning of the experiment, those patients who were subjected to the schedules of reinforcement were significantly less apathetic at the termination of the experiment than the controls who were given normal ward therapy but who were not subjected to such schedules. The implications of these findings are discussed.

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