Relational Frame Theory (RFT)

The current thesis presents a first step towards examining paranoia from a functional-analytic perspective. The focus of the research was ‘self-beliefs’ as a wealth of evidence in the existing cognitive-clinical literature suggests that this is a key process in the development and persistence of paranoia. From the functional-analytic perspective, paranoia and related self-concepts are defined as patterns of behaviour in context.

This chapter introduces the origins of, as well as arguments and evidence for, relational frame theory (RFT). It presents the study of arbitrarily applicable relational responding (AARR) to its historical roots and explains why this phenomenon has occupied the attention of behavioral scientists for over 40 years now. The chapter highlights a number of features of relational responding that becomes important when linking RFT to language and cognition later on.

This chapter presents the strategies that are based on relational frame theory (RFT) and relates specifically to the complex human abilities of, following instructions or rules, and interacting with our own behavior. According to RFT, these two core areas suggest potentially useful perspectives on how one might do effective therapy and they also provide an understanding of what, to some extent, brings individuals into psychological therapy in the first place.

Learning can be defined functionally as the impact of regularities in the environment on behavior. The concept of environmental regularities is a crucial part of this definition because it (a) improves the scope and depth of the definition and (b) provides ways to differentiate between different types of learning. We argue that this concept is useful also for conceptualizing learning from the perspective of Relational Frame Theory.

Cognitive neuroscience has developed many approaches to the study of learning that might be useful to functionally oriented researchers, including those from a relational frame theory (RFT) perspective. We focus here on two examples. First, cognitive neuroscience often distinguishes between habit and goal-directed reinforcement learning, in which only the latter is sensitive to proximal changes in behavior-environment contingencies.

Relational Frame Theory (RFT) is a contemporary account of language and cognition rooted in behavior analysis. This paper presents a citation analysis of the RFT literature that follows on from that conducted by Dymond, May, Munnelly and Hoon (2010) who examined the evidence base for and impact of RFT between 1991 and 2008. The current analysis focused on Empirical and Non-Empirical studies citing RFT-related search terms and their publishing outlets in the period from 2009 to 2016.

The relational evaluation procedure (REP) is seen by proponents of relational frame theory (RFT) as a useful means by which to assess and train relational responding.