Radical behavioral help for Katrina Original Research Article

Our treatment plan for Katrina is guided by the principles of functional analytic psychotherapy (FAP; ), an approach derived from radical behaviorism. The fundamental assumption is that we and our clients act the way we do because of the contingencies of reinforcement we have experienced in past relationships. It then follows that clinical improvements, which are acts of the client, also involve contingencies of reinforcement that occur in the relationship between the client and therapist. Thus, our treatment of Katrina emphasizes the use of the client-therapist interaction as an in-vivo learning opportunity. It is for this reason that FAP views a caring, genuine, sensitive, and emotional client-therapist relationship as the most important element in the change process. We describe a FAP case conceptualization form designed to help the therapist achieve a curative therapeutic relationship. Our case conceptualization of Katrina includes an account of how Katrinaʹs history resulted in her current daily life problems, identification of Katrinaʹs cognitive phenomena that might be related to her current problems, and most importantly the prediction of how Katrinaʹs clinically relevant behavior—daily life problems, dysfunctional thinking, and improvements—might occur during the session within the therapist-client relationship.