The purpose of this article is to introduce readers to Dr Murray Sidman. He has made a number of fundamental and distinctive, but perhaps neglected, contributions to the behaviour therapy enterprise, from its emergent years to the present. It is also an attempt to engender an appreciation of the continuing significance and relevance of Sidman's research and scholarship to matters of contemporary and enduring concern for behaviour therapists.

Coercion is defined as the control of behaviour through (a) punishment or the threat of punishment, or (b) negative reinforcement — the removal of punishment. The question under discussion is whether coercion is an effective and a desirable basis for applied behaviour analysis, particularly in educational settings. Because coercive control has always been characteristic of society in general, the problem requires consideration of all facets of our culture. Behaviour analysts who use or recommend coercive techniques of therapy, behaviour modification, teaching, parenting, and so on, must be viewed in that context. In many areas of society, the practice of coercion has been refined and perfected to an extent that applied behaviour analysis has never approached. Applied behavioural research therefore contributes nothing new when it applies coercive methodology. Also, coercion produces side effects that may be even less desirable than the original problem behaviour. The occasional need to use coercion to deal with emergencies does not justify the advocacy of coercion as a principle of therapy. What basic and applied behaviour analysts can offer that is new and constructive are positive reinforcement techniques for teaching new behaviour and stimulus-control techniques for establishing cognitive repertoires.

The dominant research tradition in psychology, including much of cognitive-behaviour therapy, requires that large numbers of subjects be allocated randomly to form treatment groups. Treatment effects typically are assessed by testing a null hypothesis about group mean differences. This paradigm seriously thwarts the development of a science of individual behaviour, inhibits the implementation of the scientist–practitioner model, stifles innovation, impairs accountability, and precludes the scientific investigation of the exceptional or novel case. Single-case research designs, first systematically expounded by Sidman (1960), make it possible to draw scientifically valid conclusions from the investigation and treatment of individuals. Criticisms of the between-groups research paradigm are summarised, the key elements of single-case designs are outlined, and their consistent adoption strongly recommended.

The ability of images to bring about a renewal of fear was examined. Thirty-seven psychology students were repeatedly exposed to a slide depicting an injured face. The experimental subjects listened to a narrative that elicited images of fear while the control subjects listened to a narrative that elicited images of anger for three of the exposure trials. On the fourth and final trial, half of the subjects from each condition listened to a narrative that elicited different images, while the remainder continued to listen to the same narrative. There was no effect of narrative content on fear, but changing the narrative (either from fear to anger or vice versa) led to an increase in fear. These data suggest that the act of changing images may lead to a renewal of fear.

Driving-while-disqualified (DWD) offenders represent a significant proportion of the driving offender population, and contribute to a significant drain on governmental and societal resources. The reoffence or relapse process of recidivist DWD offending has been somewhat neglected in the past, and this paper represents a first attempt at developing an empirically generated model of this phenomenon. In this study, we undertook a grounded theory analysis of offence chain information obtained from 28 male recidivist DWD offenders. The grounded theory analysis resulted in the development of a 15-stage model of the relapse process of recidivist DWD offenders. The model identifies and describes the sequence of psychological, behavioural, and environmental factors, including mediating variables that contribute to DWD reoffending. The model was then applied to 14 new offence chains to examine its level of saturation, content validity, and inter-rater reliability. The results suggest that the model has provisional validity and adequate inter-rater reliability, and achieved a high level of saturation. The strengths and value of the model are discussed, as are its clinical and research implications.

The term quality of life (QOL) generally refers to the overall evaluation of an individual's life condition, on both objective and subjective dimensions. Quality of life research has focused on global evaluations of life satisfaction in adults. The life quality of adolescents and the performance of central life domains have largely been ignored. This study describes the psychometric properties of the Comprehensive Quality of Life Scale (ComQol) with an adolescent sample. In line with recent conceptualisations of QOL, ComQol assesses subjective and objective QOL on seven life domains. ComQol was administered along with two other self-report instruments (measuring fear and anxiety) to a sample of 264 school-based adolescents aged between 12 and 18 years. The scale yielded life satisfaction data that lay within the normative range for adults. Test-retest reliability and internal consistency analyses indicated that the scale has adequate reliability. In support of convergent validity, fear and anxiety were generally found to be significantly associated with lower levels of life quality. The present study supports the psychometric adequacy of ComQol as an instrument to measure the life quality of adolescents.