Abstract

BRITTO, Ilma A Goulart de Souza. About delusion and hallucinations. Rev. bras. ter. comport. cogn. [online]. 2004, vol.6, n.1, pp. 61-71. ISSN 1517-5545.

The present paper has the objective of presenting a discussion about delirium and hallucinations seen here as classes of problem behaviors. Delirium and hallucination are analysed under a natural science point of view, based on the contributions of Skinner’s (1957) theory of verbal behavior and Staats (1996) language theory. Scenes of the movie A Beautiful Mind were used to illustrate the behavioral  interpretation of such class of verbal behaviors. The motion picture presents the true story of a man diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenia. Delirium and hallucination are words frequently associated with mentalistic concepts as active explanations of behavior. The behavior is explained by the concept, in a circular way. It is proposed that instead of mental concepts, it is the strange, out of the ordinary behaviors that should become object of study

Keywords : Delirium; Hallucination; Verbal behavior; Behavioral analysis.

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