Luciano, M. C., Gutiérrez Martínez, O., & Rodríguez Valverde, M. (2005). Análisis de los contextos verbales que atrapan y que liberan el trastorno de evitación experiencial (TEE) en la terapia de aceptación y compromiso (ACT). Revista Latinoamericana de Psicología, 37, 333-358. [Analyzing the verbal contexts in experiential avoidance disorder and in acceptance and commitment therapy. Latinamerican Journal of Psychology, 37, 333-358].
The functional diagnostic dimension labelled as Experiential Avoidance Disorder (EAD) is a conceptualization of psychological disorders that has received increasing attention in recent years. A similar interest has been raised by clinical strategies that have evolved from a clinical target focused in changing cognitive contents to a new target focused in changing the relationship that the client has with their cognitive events. The promising results of this new approach to psychopathology and treatment emphasize the need for a specific analysis of the verbal contexts that are used to explain EAD (literality or cognitive fusion, evaluation, cognitive reasons as causes, and the control of causes) as well as for the analysis of the basic processes involved in the clinical methods of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). This paper presents EAD and psychological suffering along with an analysis of the verbal contexts that sustain EAD. Specifically, we emphasize the context of verbal regulation as the focus upon which the other verbal contexts acquire and maintain their meanings. ACT, as a therapy addressed to alter such verbal contexts, is briefly presented with an emphasis in the clinical methods that break down the relation between cognition and action (the context of destructive verbal regulation).