Historians of behavioral science reviewing progress in the provision of human services at some point in the future will have to confront a curious issue. They will note that the twentieth century witnessed the devel-opment of a science of human behavior. They will also note that from mid-century on, clinicians treating behavioral and emotional disorders began relying more heavily on the systematic application of theories and facts emanating from this science to emotional and behavioral problems. They will make observations on various false starts in the development of our therapeutic techniques, and of-fer reasons for the initial acceptance of these "false starts" in which clinicians or practitioners would apply exactly the same intervention or style of intervention to every problem that came before them. But in the last analysis historians will applaud the slow but systematic development of ever more powerful specific procedures and techniques devised to deal successfully with the variety of spe-
cific emotional and behavioral problems. This will be one of the success stories of the twentieth century.
Historians will also note a curious paradox which they will be hard pressed to explain. They will write that well into the 1990s few practitioners or clini-cians evaluated the effects of their new treatments in any systematic way. Rather, whatever the behavioral or emotional problem, they would simply ask clients from time to time how they were feeling or how they were doing. Some-
times this would be followed by reports in an official chart or record duly not-ing clients' replies. If families or married couples were involved, a report from only one member of the interpersonal system would often suffice. Occasionally, these attempts at "evaluation" would reach peaks of quantifiable objectivity by presenting the questions in somewhat different ways such as "how are you feel-ing or doing compared to a year ago when you first came to see me?"