Council for Exceptional Children

Behavioral Disorders: A Postmodern Perspective

Author(s): David Elkind
Source: Behavioral Disorders, Vol. 23, No. 3, Special Issue: Postmodernism and Behavioral
Disorders (May 1998), pp. 153-159
Published by: Council for Exceptional Children
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23888712
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 Behavioral Disorders:
A Postmodern Perspective

David Elkind
Tufts University

ABSTRACT: This article argues that, at any given time in history, our conceptions and theories of
behavioral disorders reflect the basic social and cultural tenets that prevail. In support of this argu
ment, the article describes how modern theories and conceptions of behavioral disorders were re
flective of the modern beliefs in progress, universality, and regularity. Our contemporary
conceptions and theories of behavioral disorders, however, mirror the postmodern themes of differ
ence, particularity, and regularity. We are historical as well as social beings, and it is well to be
aware of how much our science echoes themes of our contemporary society and culture.

H Behavioral, or conduct, disorders are not a
recent phenomenon. There have always been
children and youth who engage in disruptive,
antisocial behaviors and who do harm to
themselves and others. As social scientists, we
take it as axiomatic that our understanding of
these behaviors is based upon our best re
search data and our most comprehensive the
ories. In fact, however, and as I hope to
demonstrate in this article, this assumption is
false. How we conceptualize behavioral dis
orders is much less dependent upon our sci
entific data and theories than it is upon the
broader paradigms that determine how we
view ourselves and the world. Over the last
half century this paradigm has changed, and
so too has our conception of behavioral disor
ders. This alteration has occurred in advance
of any corresponding change in either data or
theories. In effect, the data and theories re
garding behavioral disorders tend to follow,
rather than lead, our societal-based concep
tions.
To make my case, I want to try and show
how the contemporary approach to behav
ioral disorders is quite different from what it
was a half century ago. This change reflects
the change in our society from a modem to a
postmodern world view. Inasmuch as the term
postmodern has been used in many, often not
positive, ways, it is important to define what I
mean by it. We can all agree that major
changes have occurred in our society since
mid-century. These changes can be observed
in all of our social institutions from science to
religion, education to industry. Terms such as
Information Age and Postindustrial Age are,
however, too limited to accommodate the
scope of these transformations. Postmodernity,
on the other hand, is a broad enough term to
encompass the range of metamorphoses that
have occurred, and that is the sense in which
I will use it here. Accordingly, in this article I
will briefly review the modern world view and
the corresponding view of behavioral disor
ders and then describe the postmodern per
spective and how this has transformed the
way we look at conduct disordersquite in
dependently of any new data or extant theo
retical approaches.
The Modern Era
Progress
The concept of modernity was built upon
three unquestioned assumptions about the
world. The first assumption was that of
progress, the notion that societies inevitably
move forward in a positive direction. To take
but one example, many societies advanced
from being autocracies and aristocracies to
guaranteeing individual freedoms and democ
racy. From its inception in the 16th century,
experimental science was the model for the
modern conception of progress, with its grad
ual accumulation of knowledge serving to im
prove the quality of life for all members of
society. Later, Darwin's theory of evolution of
fered a scientific explanation for this progress,

Behavioral Disorders, 23(3), 153-159 May 1998 / 153

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suggesting that societies, like species, evolve
by a process of variation and natural selec
tion, with survival of the fittest as the end re
sult.
The idea of progress was taken for granted
by modern psychologists who built theories
upon this assumption. G. Stanley Hall (1909),
for example, put forth his "recapitulation the
ory" to the effect that children, as they mature,
repeat the developmental stages of civiliza
tion. Likewise, Freud (1943) assumed that
children progress through several stages of
psychosexual development and that psycho
logical disorders could be explained as an ar
restment of development (fixation and
regression). Erikson (1950), in turn, believed
that children progress through successive
stages of psychosocial development. He also
believed that negative outcomes at one stage
would make the succeeding stages more diffi
cult.
The assumption of progress also was pre
sent among modern behavior theorists, but it
was not as obvious because these investiga
tors were dealing with a different time scale
(hours, days) than the developmentalists, who
were dealing in months and years.
Nonetheless, the idea that behavior can be
shaped by conditioning or reinforcement (e.g.,
Skinner, 1 953) clearly implied a form of
progress, albeit within a more limited time
frame. More recently, token economies have
been used in schools and institutions to help
control behavioral disorders. It is generally be
lieved that with such economies children and
youth will progress to less disordered and
more self-regulated behavior.
Universality
A second underlying assumption of modernity
was that of universality. The emergence of sci
ence, the scientific method, and the reliance
upon observation and experimentation were
encouraged by the modern belief that nature,
rather than religious or imperial authority, is
the only source of knowledge and truth.
Nature was assumed to operate according to
universal laws that could be discovered by
diligent observations and research. The scien
tific belief in universal natural laws was sup
ported by such discoveries as the Newtonian
laws of gravitation, the periodic tables of the
elements, and the Darwinian principles of
evolution.
154 / May 1998
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The notion of universality was accepted
by social scientists as well. In sociology Drk
heim (1947) and Weber (1947) created grand
theories of society, as did Marx (1906) in his
social economics. In a like manner, historians
Spengler (1939) and Toynbee (1934-1961) of
fered grand, universal theories of societal evo
lution. The developmental psychologists cited
earlierHall, Freud, and Erikson as well as
Jung and Piaget, created what they believed to
be all-encompassing theories of human be
havior and development. They believed that
all children went through the stages they de
scribed, although perhaps at different rates
and with varying degrees of success. The
stages themselves were invariant. These theo
ries were put forth under the belief that they
had the same claim to universality as the theo
ries of physicists and biologists.
The belief in universality was not limited
to the developmental psychologists; it was
shared by those of behavioral persuasion.
Because psychologists believed that the prin
ciples of learning were universal to all animal
species, it made sense to study these princi
ples in rats, upon which one could experi
ment in ways not possible with humans. Rat
psychology led to endless controversies over
such issues as the benefits of mass versus dis
tributed learning and the extent of transfer of
training. Problem solving was thought to in
volve only trial and error or insight, inasmuch
as these were the processes employed by cats
and chimpanzees in their attempts to remove
barriers to desired goals. Psychologists study
ing cognition also were not exempt from the
belief in universality. Using human subjects,
they studied memory with the aid of nonsense
syllables, so that content would not interfere
with observation of the universal memory
process.
The belief in universality led to a number
of very general explanations of conduct disor
ders. From a psychodynamic point of view,
conduct disorders were looked upon as a
form of psychopathology, or mental illness.
Consider the following explanation of female
juvenile delinquency:
Theoretical considerations tend to
support the thesis that female delin
quency is often precipitated by a
strong regressive pull to the pre
Oedipal mother and the panic which
such surrender implies. As we can
Behavioral Disorders, 23(3), 153-159
 readily see, there are two solutions
available to the girl who is faced with
an Oedipal failure or disappointment,
which she is unable to surmount. She
either regresses in her object relation
ship to the mother or she maintains an
illusory Oedipal situation with the sole
aim to resist aggression. This defensive
struggle is manifested in the compul
sive need to create in reality a rela
tionship in which she is needed and
wanted by a sexual partner. These
constellations represent a paradig
matic precondition for female delin
quency. (Bios, 1962)
The belief in universality was not limited
to the dynamic theorists. In their classic work
Personality and Psychotherapy, Miller and
Dollard (1941) translated Freudian theory into
behavioral terms. That the underlying univer
salist assumptions were left untouched was re
marked upon by several writers of the time.
Meehl (1955) wrote that "even such a power
ful and illuminating work as Dollard and
Miller's Personality and Psychotherapy suffers
from a traditionalism with which we are all in
fected. It is a brilliant rendition, in the learning
theory frame, of a fairly orthodox view of ther
apy" (p. 375). In a similar vein, Bandura and
Walters (1963) wrote: "The net effect of these
translations has . . . been to entrench more
firmly assumptions and concepts that have ac
cumulated over the years through the uncon
trolled trial and error experiences of practicing
clinicians" (p. 29).
A more strictly behavioral approach to
conduct disorders was taken by Joseph Wlpe
(1958), who defined conduct disorders as
"any persistent habit of unadaptive behavior
acquired by learning in a physiologically
healthy organism" (p. 32). From Wolpe's per
spective, behavioral disorders were condi
tioned anxiety responses. However, he
accepted the fact that individuals differ in
their susceptibility to anxiety because of either
personal history or physiological predisposi
tion. His therapeutic approach was to condi
tion other, competing, responses to the
anxiety-producing cues, a process he called
reciprocal inhibition. From our perspective,
the important point is that when Wlpe
posited a universal theory of maladaptive be
havior, he was still thinking in the modern
mode.
Behavioral Disorders, 23(3), 153-159
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Regularity
The last undergirding assumption of the mod
ern world was that of regularity. Nature is law
ful, and the task of science was to uncover
such lawfulness. As Einstein phrased this be
lief, "God does not play dice with the uni
verse." Unlawful phenomena, from this
perspective, were simply phenomena that had
yet to be explained or to be explained at an
other level. Irregular (unlawful) phenotypes,
for example, could be explained by regular
(lawful) genotypes. Taking the same "levels"
approach to causality, Freud argued that slips
of the tongue and pen (unlawful occurrences)
could be explained by deeper-level uncon
scious (lawful) wishes and desires.
From a psychoanalytic perspective, there
fore, the seemingly irrational behavior of
some young people was nevertheless under
standable at a different level of analysis.
Adolescents who vandalized, for example,
seemed to be engaging in a kind of senseless
destruction. If one appreciated, however, that
they were tremendously angry and that they
got satisfaction out of imagining the reactions
of those whose property they destroyed, their
behavior made more sense. It was this belief
in regularity that led Freud to the belief that
there are no accidents in human behavior.
And this belief in lawfulness and regularity
was the norm among dynamic therapists in
the modern era.
Dynamic theorists, however, were not the
only ones wedded to a belief in regularity and
lawfulness. From Thorndike's (1913) postula
tion of the law of effect to Skinner's (1953)
principle of intermittent reinforcement, behav
ior theorists also have articulated various
"laws" of learning. As we saw with Wolpe's
theory, these laws of learning can account for
maladaptive as well as adaptive behavior,
given the right conditions. According to be
havioral theorists, young people who engage
in what appears to be senseless or random be
havior are in fact following the laws of learn
ing. In such cases of operant behavior, as
Skinner made clear, we do not know what the
stimuli or consequences are, but they most
certainly are there.
Summary of the Modern Era
In summary, during the modern era the beliefs
in progress, universality, and regularity shaped
May 1998 / 155
our observations, theories, and treatment of
behavioral disorders. This was as true for be
haviorally oriented psychologists as it was for
those who took a more psychodynamic ap
proach. Behavioral disorders were in one or
another way regarded as an expression of ar
rested development, as having a universal ex
planation, and as both regular and lawful
despite any surface appearance of irrationality
and lawlessness.
The Postmodern Era
Postmodernism arose as a critique of modern
ideas and an effort to correct some of the
overly idealistic and romantic views of the
world that they created. In this century, after
two world wars, the Holocaust, the atom
bomb, the degradation of the environment,
and the exploitation of the earth's natural re
sources, it is difficult to hold to the modern
conception of progress as an unbroken march
toward a better world and a more humane so
ciety. Even the progress toward individual
freedom and self-fulfillment that did occur
was often limited to certain groups (white
Anglo-Saxon males) and did not extend to
women or to minorities. To be sure, progress
still happens, say, in the conquest of disease,
but it is particular and domain specific, rather
than holding true for all of humanity.
A Focus on Difference
What has come to the fore in postmodern
times is the awareness and importance of dif
ference. In the modern era, difference was
often seen from the standpoint of superiority.
Non-Western societies, as an illustration, were
regarded as inferior to Western "civilizations"
because they had not progressed as far. This
notion of superiority was implicit in the con
cept of the United States as a "melting pot" in
which people of (inferior) cultures would be
melted down and then poured into a mold in
which each would be turned into a purified,
standard American. Today, however, we rec
ognize that people do not melt and that other
cultures, ethnic groups, and races are to be
appreciated and valued rather than dissolved
into some common amalgam. The postmod
ern conception of the United States as a cul
tural, ethnic, and racial "rainbow" celebrates
the valuate of difference in contrast to the
156 / May 1998
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feeling of superiority inherent in the modern
conception of social progress and the melting
pot.
Within psychology, this new appreciation
of difference has had many far-reaching ef
fects, from an appreciation of a difference be
tween male and female psychologies to a new
sensitivity to racial, cultural, and ethnic differ
ences. Increasingly, for example, our text
books on child development review the
development of children growing up in differ
ent racial, ethnic, and cultural settings. In con
trast, in the modern era, such differences were
neglected because of the assumption of uni
versality, of the sameness of psychological
principles.
The sensitivity to difference rather than
progress also has changed our conception of
behavioral disorders. We now appreciate the
subjectivity of this classification and the fuzzi
ness of its boundaries. Here is how a contem
porary author described the diversity of
behavioral disorders:
Experienced clinicians know that
every other psychiatric diagnosis of
childhood and adolescence, ranging
from attention problems to psychoses,
may, under certain circumstances, be
manifested by disordered, often ob
noxious behaviors. Conduct disorder,
as currently defined, includes such be
haviors as staying out late, fire setting,
and sexual assault. By covering such a
broad spectrum of behaviors, the diag
nosis catches within its net a multitude
of sins as well as a multitude of differ
ent kinds of neuropsychiatrie and
psychosocial conditions and combina
tions thereof. Children have a limited
verbal capacity as well as a limited
repertoire of behaviors with which to
express their discomfort, misery and
confusion. Therefore, the very same
kinds of behaviors of different children
can be indicators of very different
kinds of problems. (Lewis, 1996, p.
564)
This new awareness of the multiplicity of
behaviors and the complexity of their causal
ity does not derive from any new psychologi
cal or psychiatric theory or from any new
revolutionary research findings. Rather, it re
flects the new social awareness and sensitiv
ity to difference and complexity that
Behavioral Disorders, 23(3), 153-159
characterizes the postmodern era. And this
new awareness and sensitivity are as true for
those steeped in psychodynamic theory as
they are for those of a committed behavioral
persuasion. The Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition
(DSM-IV), published by the American
Psychiatric Association (1994) reflects this
new recognition of diversity and is employed
by clinicians of all theoretical viewpoints. In
effect, the postmodern focus upon difference
has united clinicians of very different persua
sions, at least in matters of diagnosis.
The Notion of Particularity
Just as the conception of progress was chal
lenged by the evidence of lack of progress, the
assumption of universality also has undergone
revision. This is particularly true in the social
sciences. When Nietzsche (1986), an early
postmodernist, proclaimed the death of God,
he was railing against metaphysics and those
who exploited the belief in a universal super
natural being. In a similar tone, when Foucault
(1973) wrote about the end of man, he was ar
guing against the metaphysical idea of a uni
versal human nature and for a fuller and
deeper appreciation of human individuality.
The so-called universal principles of so
cial science also are proving to be less than
transcendent. The grand social/economic the
ories of Marx and Weber have turned out to
be less than prophetic and universal.
Likewise, the grand histories of Spengler and
Toynbee now appear as flawed individual the
ories of history rather than as discovered uni
versal principles of societal progression. In a
similar way, Hall's recapitulation theory
which posited that the individual in his or her
development recapitulates the development of
the speciescan no longer be maintained.
While there are universals, particularly in the
physical and biological sciences, these are
much less common in the social sciences,
where particularity is more likely to be the
rule.
The new awareness and responsiveness to
particularity is now reflected in our approach
to conduct disorders as well. For example, the
DSM-IV (1994) now distinguishes two broad
categories of conduct disorder based on age
of onset. "Childhood onset" is diagnosed
when at least one behavior has occurred be
fore age 10. "Adolescent onset" is diagnosed
Behavioral Disorders,- 23(3), 153-159
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when no criterion behavior has occurred prior
to age 10. Furthermore, the DSM-IV lists 15
different behaviors grouped under the follow
ing four categories: (1) aggression to people
and animals, (2) destruction of property, (3)
deceitfulness or theft, and (4) serious violation
of rules. The diagnosis is further limited by as
signing the label only if the young person has
engaged in three of the behaviors over the
past year. This attention to particularity is
clear evidence of the pervasiveness of the
postmodern conception of childhood in con
temporary clinical practice.
As a way of demonstrating how far we
have come in just a half century, a few exam
ples of diagnoses of behavioral disorders from
the modern era may be instructive. In The
Wayward Child, Hannah Kent Schoff wrote:
The problem of the wayward, erring
child is one that exists in every com
munity, yet it too, is a condition that is
largely remediable and preventable. It
took years of earnest study to reveal
that the hookworm was a cause of low
vitality and lack of initiative and en
ergy. Infinitely more subtle is that spirit
which gives life and power to the
human body, and the intelligent com
prehension of all that depresses or in
spires it is correspondingly more
difficultbut this may be accom
plished so that the obstacles which
obstruct the spirit's normal growth and
development can be seen and re
moved. (1915, p. 2)
For Schoff, writing in the modern era,
waywardness was a general diagnosis that fit a
wide range of behaviors that were characteris
tic of children in all parts of society.
Moreover, she attributed their problems to a
common cause, namely, the arrestation of de
velopment. There was little attention given to
the wide range of individual differences
among children showing these symptoms or
the fact that the same symptoms might reflect
very different types of problems. The modern
belief in both progress and universality is very
clear in Schoff's conception of the "wayward
child."
A more recent textbook on behavioral dis
orders still reflects some of the modern em
phases. In Behavior Disorders of Children,
Bakwin and Bakwin (1967) grouped behav
ioral disorders into the following categories:
May 1998 / 157
 Problems related to intellectual function
ing
Developmental disorders
Problems related to emotional develop
ment
Problems of habit and training
Organic disturbances with a large psychic
component
Antisocial behavior
Specific syndromes
In the Bakwin nosology, behavioral disor
ders were grouped largely on the basis of eti
ology. Although more differentiated than the
notion of the "wayward child," the classifica
tion on the basis of etiology reflected the
modern assumption of universalitythat cer
tain behavior patterns have a common under
lying cause.
This kind of nosology is much less com
mon today. In Developmental Psychopath
ology, for example, Achenbach (1982) listed
only four categories of behavioral disorder:
(1) disorders of self-control, (2) disorders of
learning and affect, (3) psychotic and perva
sive developmental disorders, and (4) the de
velopment of delinquent behavior and drug
abuse. Although these categories have an eti
ological component, they are also much more
behavioral than the Bakwin classification.
This, in turn, reflects the postmodern focus
upon particular behavioral description rather
than underlying universal etiologies. Again,
these changes have come about without
major changes in our basic theories of behav
ioral dysfunction. Even the shift to the term
dysfunction rather than psychopathology re
flects a shift in social science discourse more
than it does a change in theoretical presuppo
sitions.
The Notion of Irregularity
Finally, the modern assumption of regularity
and lawfulness has been modified by the post
modern acceptance of the normality of irregu
larity. We acknowledge today that some
phenomena, such as the weather, are inher
ently irregular. So too are phenomena such as
the dispersion of cream in a coffee cup. Each
time we place cream in a coffee cup, the dis
persion pattern is different than it was before.
158 / May 1998
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Although many phenomena are indeed law
ful, others are, by nature, chaotic and have no
underlying regularity. Classrooms, for exam
ple, are nonreplicable experiments. Each time
a classroom group meets, both the teachers
and the children have had intervening experi
ences, and these experiences affect their inter
actions in unpredictable ways. This does not
mean that classrooms cannot be studied, but
only that they must be studied in different
ways, not in the same manner as one studies
physical, repeatable occurrences.
The notion of irregularity is now reflected
in much of our diagnostic nosology. To illus
trate, the DSM-IV definition of attention deficit
with hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as involv
ing any 4 or 5 out of 18 neurological, behav
ioral, or attentional symptoms is recognition
that this disorder has no underlying regularity.
This is important. We now recognize that any
behavioral disorder is, in some ways, unique.
This means that we must pay a great deal of
attention to the child's behavior and circum
stances before we attach any labels to him or
her. Unfortunately, the complexity of diagno
sis is often ignored, and children are lumped
too readily into one or another diagnostic cat
egory.
Summary of the Postmodern Era
In summary, then, in the postmodern era we
have come to look at behavioral disorders as
encompassing a number of different behav
ioral and etiological complexes that are par
ticular to any given child and may not fit any
readily identifiable general pattern. The post
modern importance placed upon difference,
particularity, and irregularity has made us
focus much more upon the individual child,
rather than one popular nosological category
or another. Much modern thinking and diag
nosis continues, of course, but there has been
a change of emphasis.
Hopefully, this postmodern way of ap
proaching behavioral disorders will be re
flected in our therapies as well. One of the
themes of modernity is that traditional disci
plinary and theoretical boundaries are artifi
cial at best. When psychology, sociology, and
anthropology were breaking away from phi
losophy, they worked hard to define them
selves in opposition to the other disciplines.
But in fact such divisions are arbitrary. So too,
we must recognize, are those between the be
Behavioral Disorders, 23(3), 153-159
havioral and dynamic traditionsnot in the
Miller and Dollard (1941) sense of reducing
one to the other, but rather recognizing that
they are different and equally valuable and
that one may be more appropriate than the
other for a particular child.
In short, this new way of looking at chil
dren suggests that we take a broad approach
to the treatment of behavioral disorders. First
of all, it suggests that the clinician needs to
have a wide variety of treatment strategies at
his or her disposal. Today clinicians should be
familiar with the therapeutic tools of all theo
retical persuasions and apply any combina
tion that seems the right one for a particular
child. Play therapy and behavior modification
are not incompatible; they might be used in
combination for some children. A mixture of
therapeutic techniques, a therapeutic pas
tiche, is quintessential^ postmodern.
Conclusion
In this article I have tried to demonstrate that
our conception of behavioral disorders is de
termined more by the prevailing societal para
digm than it is by research data and theories.
Our view of behavioral disorders as being an
arrestation of progress, reflective of universal
principles of behavior, and reflecting lawful
ness was based on the basic assumptions of
modernity. Today we look at behavioral disor
ders as appearing in many different patterns,
as being particular, and as not necessarily re
flective of some general law or principle.
These changes in our conception of behav
ioral disorders are only now beginning to im
pact our theories and research.
The fact that psychological science fol
lows, rather than leads, society need not be a
discouraging truth. When we recognize the
embeddedness of our science in societal
norms and values, we can gain new insights
into our work and a new sense of caution
about translating that work into social policy
recommendations.
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AUTHOR:
David Elkind, Professor, Department of Child
Development, Tufts University, Medford,
Massachusetts.
MANUSCRIPT:
Final Acceptance: 5/12/97
May 1998 / 159