Author: ViniciusGarciaWhile treating acase involving response classes that characterized the so-called kleptomania, Iperformed a functional assessment of the behavior of compulsive stealing. Theresults strongly suggested that the behavior of stealing occurred only when theclient was feeling anxious for long periods. The chronic anxiety for prolongedtimes always preceded episodes of stealing. As is common in cases ofkleptomania, the client, in most cases, used to steal objects of little or novalue. From the beginning, it was quite clear that the stolen objects or valuesdid not bear any relation with the material needs of the client.Throughout therapy,the client was able to describe that when he was feeling very anxious underanxiogenic stimuli, over which he had no control, he used to engage in behaviorthat also produced anxiogenic contexts, but on which he could have relativecontrol. That is, when feeling constantly and chronically anxious under variouscontexts involving uncontrollability, he then used to involve himself incontexts that could produce sudden and acute anxiety. These contexts,however, were controllable. In such controllablecontexts, he could be caught when stealing or he could get away and feelimmediate relief from anxiety. This kind of behavior did not result in lastingrelief from anxiety, only in immediate alleviation. The kleptomaniac behaviorwas therefore maintained by negative reinforcement by soften momentarily the chronicanxiety produced by previous uncontrollable anxiogenic stimuli, through thecessation of controllable anxiogenic stimuli.I will not gointo the details of the case, but clinical observation suggests that anxietyrespondent behaviors and negative reinforcement may be important factors insome cases involving kleptomaniac behavior. While searching on the internetabout some similar clinical observation, I surprisingly found little materialproduced by behavior analysts and a reference quite similar to the observationdescribed here, but made by a gestalt-therapist (1). The behavior analyticreferences to negative reinforcement in cases of kleptomania boil down to a fewexcerpts in some psychiatric manuals (2), clearly not written by behavioranalysts (due to the absence of conceptual rigor). Such psychiatric manualsrefer to a hypothesis called theory of self-medication, which involvesnegative reinforcement.Some treatmentsbased on behavior analysis involved the use of aversive stimulation and werecited by Hodgins and Peden, in an article that also describescognitive-behavioral treatments (3). In such behavior analytic treatment,therapists used a technique called covert sensitization, which involved theimagination of aversive situations related to kleptomaniac behavior. In onecase (4), the client reported a reduction in the behavior of stealing, but nochange in his "urges to steal." Another client (5) reported that herurges were nearly diminished. However, there was a record of a relapse in a 14months follow-up. In a third case (6), the client, during a monitoring periodof 10 weeks, reported three episodes of relapse. Such examples, opposed to theclinical observation mentioned above at the beginning of this post, suggestpossible problems arising from the use of techniques without the priorcompletion of a detailed functional assessment of kleptomaniac behavior in eachcase. If kleptomaniacbehavior is maintained by negative reinforcement by stopping or lessenmomentarily anxiogenic stimulations, aversive techniques such as those used inthe studies cited by Hodgins and Peden may exacerbate the problem, since theycan produce increased anxiety. A moreappropriate treatment in these cases should involve learning alternativebehaviors that would produce the