in a relatively unequivocal manner and health care payers can be given quantifiable data for determining whether treatment has been advantageous given their financial outlay.
However, is this claim really valid? Raffel and Raffel (1994) report that it is impossible to equate mental illness with the quantifiable outcomes common to a physical illness or injury such as cancer or a broken hip. According to the authors, the diagnosis, treatment and cure of the mentally ill is neither as precise, as certain or assured as that of physical illnesses and that to pretend otherwise, is folly.
What this means is that the concrete and quantifiable data provided by behavioral therapists may not truly be a measure of treatment efficacy but only a measure of change in relation to certain behaviors that were but facets of the problem or condition rather than the core determinants of the condition. Thus, on the treatment efficacy dimension, the behavioral approach does not appear to be any more valid or viable
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