ABSTRACT.
Functional Analytic Psychotherapy is a clinical approach based on a behavioral functional analysis of the typical therapeutic setting. Its objectives and therapeutic techniques can be described in different terms, privileging or not the language used in the experimental analysis of behavior. In its original formulation, this approach aims to decrease the frequency of problematic clinically relevant behaviors (CRBs) and to increase those of progress and interpretation by the five-rules technique: observe CRBs, evoke CRBs, reinforce CRBs, observe the effects of the intervention, and implement generalization. Under the influence of the Behavioral Contextual Science, these same elements came to be described with the label ‘Awareness, Courage and Love Model’ (ACL Model). The goal of this study was to identify whether the language of this new proposition was compatible with that used by B. F. Skinner. The method was a review of these terms, or their synonyms, using important books of the work of B. F. Skinner, notably a literature characterized by its derivation of laboratory findings in research on operant behavior. The books consulted were Science and human behavior, About behaviorism, Verbal behavior, Walden II and Recent issues in the analysis of behavior. This review made it possible to conclude that the terms awareness, courage and love had already been explored in the Skinnerian literature, offering functional analyses and showing that their use is compatible with the behavioral system.
Keywords:
Psychotherapy; theories; behaviorism