The History and Evolution of Behavioral Approaches and Positive Behavioral Interventions

Derrick Dufresne: Well, again, people like Herb Lovett and John McGee, Anne Donnellan and others, what I think they really taught us is that you can't work with someone unless you develop a relationship. There has to be some underlying foundation of trust. There has to be some reason that I'd want to be in your presence. I'm not an instrument of your doing. I'm not an object of your program. I refuse to go there.

Now people didn't say that… But what they said was people… I'm paraphrasing… that people aren't behavioral beings. They're not social beings. They're human beings. And if we are all cut out of the same fabric, the same cloth, the same sinew, the same blood, sweat, and tears, then if I am able, when I'm frustrated and I come home from work to slam a door to let off steam, why is it that when a person you're working with who's had a very bad day at work, slams a door, I have to write a program?

And they forced us…by force, I mean that they challenged us to have to stop and take a look not at the behavior of the person whose behavior we're trying to modify, but at our own self, at our own soul, at our own activities. And this is very threatening to some people, particularly professionals that have made their careers out of this other thing. Because to some degree, it was like starting over. Once you get this, when people say, "What are you going to do?" You have to say, "I don't know." And for a professional to say "I don't know," is probably one of the scariest things that can happen.