Mental health as motivational operation: Service-user and caregiver emotional states in the context of challenging behaviour

This brief conceptual paper seeks to address the role of mental health and the experience of negative life events in the positive behavioural support framework in relation to the behaviour of both service users and caregivers and some of the implications this may suggest for intervention. It is argued that the conceptualisation of mental health related variables as motivating operations is parsimonious at a theoretical and practical level and may create one way of generating further synergies within the field of IDD.