Terminology and behavior reduction: the case against "punishment"

Controversy continues to rage over the application of punishment or aversive procedures in treatment and habilitation. A lack of clear definition of terms may be contributing to confusion in the debate. Tracing the history of the term punishment shows that its retention as a description of a behavioral process is due primarily to happenstance. The unfortunate choice of a word long associated with cruel and inhumane treatment has led to considerable confounding of the technical and traditional usages in public debate. The alternative term, aversive, is of more recent origin, yet it also suffers from inconsistent usage and some degree of negative association. Important questions concerning the appropriateness of behavior reduction procedures are made more difficult to answer when those procedures are designated by names laden with surplus meaning. Attempts by professional associations to address the behavior reduction dilemma offer opportunities for implementing more precise, less pejorative terms. Toward that end a conceptual framework is presented that could guide the choice of an alternative terminology for behavior reduction.