Creating safe, evocative, attuned, and mutually vulnerable therapeutic beginnings: Strategies from functional analytic psychotherapy.

Abstract

Functional analytic psychotherapy (FAP), with its emphasis on the creation of a safe, evocative, attuned, authentic, and mutually vulnerable therapeutic relationship, offers strategies that are especially relevant for therapeutic beginnings that yield an engaging and potent treatment. The 5 rules of FAP provide behavioral specificity in the early tasks of therapy that can build a powerful alliance with clients: creating trust and safety, moving the conversation from content to in-the-moment process, evoking and naturally reinforcing client target behaviors related to authentic expression, instilling hope, being aware of clinical impact, and promoting generalization of in-session gains to daily life. It is hoped that FAP offers a conceptually clear and inspiring transtheoretical framework that sets the stage for a deeply meaningful and unforgettable therapy. Clinical Impact StatementQuestion: How can therapists best engage their clients in the first sessions of therapy as conceptualized from a Functional Analytic Psychotherapy perspective? Findings: Strategies from Functional Analytic Psychotherapy provide behavioral specificity in the early tasks of therapy that can build a powerful alliance with clients. Meaning: Therapeutic skill in evoking and naturally reinforcing client target behaviors in session related to authentic expression will increase client engagement and retention. Next Steps: Future research can focus on specific mechanisms of change in the beginning of therapy.

Lived Experience of Treatment for Avoidant Personality Disorder: Searching for Courage to Be

“…By contrast, when feeling understood and known as a person, the participants' descriptions came across with a sense of emerging vitality, initiative, and movement. Thus, viewing the themes together points toward the importance of building emotional connection to foster a sense of trust and safety in the therapeutic relationship that allows for collaboration and risk taking when approaching the client's goals (e.g., Spencer et al, 2019;Tsai et al, 2019). The participants that described positive qualities of the therapeutic relationship did experience their therapists as being warm and caring while giving time and space for them.…”

Multiculturalidade e interseccionalidade nas terapias comportamentais contextuais

“…A epistemologia comportamental fundamentada no modelo selecionista skinneriano e sua derivação -o contextualismo funcional (S. C. Hayes et al, 2012) -é a base das terapias comportamentais contextuais, por vezes chamadas de terapias comportamentais de terceira onda (Lucena-Santos et al, 2015;Vandenberghe, 2017). Destas, a Psicoterapia Analítica Funcional (FAP) se destaca pelo seu foco interpessoal centrado na relação terapêutica (Tsai et al, 2019), característica presente na competência cultural (Chu et al, 2016;Hays, 2016) e que possibilita uma maior sensibilidade cultural (Vandenberghe, 2008). Aproximações entre o modelo tripartite de competência cultural e terapias comportamentais contextuais, já foram reportadas, especialmente em relação à Terapia de Aceitação e Compromisso (ACT) e a Terapia Comportamental Dialética (DBT; Masuda, 2014), enquanto outras estratégias de abordagem da cultura já foram sugeridas em relação à FAP (Kanter et al, 2010b).…”

Interfaces entre as psicoterapias comportamentais e a cultura

“…Dentre as terapias comportamentais contextuais, a FAP foi desenvolvida a partir de observações de mudanças comportamentais fortemente influenciadas pela relação terapêutica (Tsai et al, 2019). Em virtude disso, é uma intervenção voltada para questões interpessoais, usando a relação real entre cliente e terapeuta como ferramenta central de intervenção, sendo considerada, em função desta e de outras características descritas abaixo, sensível às demandas culturais (Vandenberghe, 2008).…”