Managements

• token economy is a reward system that is used to manage behaviour of patients with schizophrenia. this tends to be used with patients who have been in hospital environment, they tent to have poor hygiene and remain in the same clothes
• this method is used to make sure they have a better quality of life outside of a hospital environment
• in order to make the reinforcement effective, clinicians may exercise control over important primary reinforces, like food privacy and access to activities that reduce boredom
• it could be argued that token economy is unethical because a vulnerable individual would be manipulated and their human rights would be stripped away
• Corrigan (1991) argues that there are problems administrating the token economy method with outpatients who live in the community. within a psychiatric ward setting, inpatients receive 24-hour care and so there's better control for staff to monitor and reward patients appropriately
• outpatients living in the community only receive day treatments for a few hours a day, so therefore the token method could only be used for part of the day. as a result, the method may not be maintained consistently and so becomes less effective