Certain things should never be taken for granted, among them... the precise meaning of words that are at the heart of your discipline.For a large class of cases - though not for all - in which we employ the word ‘‘meaning’’ it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.The prevailing state of affairs in the mental health field is one in which we have been unable to agree on a definition of our (...) central concept, that of ‘mental disorder’. That is to say, we have not achieved consensus in the matter of what criteria constitute the... (shrink)

Although generally supportive of our overall position, both Zachar and Gala and Laughon raise questions about our research design. Herein, we respond to these questions by presenting counterarguments that support the soundness of this design.Subsequent to stating some broad agreement with our central thesis that mental disorder is best viewed as a disability concept and not a behavioral one, Dr. Zachar expresses a number of reservations about our work. We focus on the following discussion on what seem to be the (...) most significant of these.Dr. Zachar states the following : “In 8 of their 12 conditions, the dependent variable is evaluation of problematic behavior and the independent variable is disability... (shrink)