It is good that Peter Sturmey is scrutinizing the basis of cognitive therapy for people with intellectual disabilities. This response argues that behavioural therapies have always employed cognitive techniques and produced cognitive change but have omitted to measure them. It is further argued that unobservable variables are germane to scientific…

Sturmey (2005) argues that the evidence base underlying approaches to intervention based on applied behavioural analysis (ABA) are significantly stronger than that underlying approaches to intervention based on cognitive therapy. He concludes that "the ethical imperative of beneficence requires that people, including people with ID, receive known…

Background: Lindsay's comments related mostly behaviour, analytic conceptions of human behaviour and therapy. Materials and Method: I argue that radical behaviourism addresses many of his concerns relating to private behaviour and his cognitive analysis of the private behaviour of offenders with intellectual disabilities. Cognitive explanations of…

"Valuing People," the English national strategy launched in 2001 is founded on the twin principles of self-determination and social inclusion. It promotes a vision of people with intellectual disabilities in the mainstream of life. To achieve this goal, it seeks to integrate a wide variety of elements, in which person-centred planning (PCP) is…

Mansell & Beadle-Brown (2004) raise a number of concerns about the possible impact of the systematic introduction of person-centred planning (PCP) across services for people with intellectual disabilities in the UK. We too foresee a danger that system-wide adoption of PCP will be characterised over zealous "selling" of the purported benefits…

Policy appears to regard person-centred planning (PCP) as underpinning strategic planning. While accepting the logic of its role in planning for individuals, this commentary argues that PCP cannot fulfil a strategic planning role because the development of PCP on a wide enough scale to be useful for this purpose is itself a strategic development,…

This paper responds to four commentaries on our original paper in this issue. We respond to issues raised under three headings addressing the scale of the task envisaged in the 2001 White Paper "Valuing People," the feasibility and effectiveness of individual planning and how to achieve person-centred action. We conclude that there is substantial…