The first recommendation Kazdin made for advancing the psychotherapy research knowledge base, improving patient care, and reducing the gulf between research and practice was to study the mechanisms of therapeutic change. He noted, "The study of mechanisms of change has received the least attention even though understanding mechanisms may well be…

Sigmund Freud and B. F. Skinner are often seen as psychology's polar opposites. It seems this view is fallacious. Indeed, Freud and Skinner had many things in common, including basic assumptions shaped by positivism and determinism. More important, Skinner took a clear interest in psychoanalysis and wanted to be analyzed but was turned down. His…

According to the hedonic treadmill model, good and bad events temporarily affect happiness, but people quickly adapt back to hedonic neutrality. The theory, which has gained widespread acceptance in recent years, implies that individual and societal efforts to increase happiness are doomed to failure. The recent empirical work outlined here…