Radical Behavioral Psychotherapy: Two Contemporary Examples

Two new systems of adult outpatient psychotherapy based on Skinner's Radical Behaviorism are described. They do not resemble traditional behavior therapy. Functional analytic psychotherapy (FAP) relies on an involved, emotional, non-manipulative clinical-therapist relationship as the vehicle of change. Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) gives the client a counterintuitive method of accepting, rather than changing or eliminating, troublesome thoughts and feelings. The descriptions of these therapies are offered (a) to illustrate how intensive, in-depth psychotherapies can be derived from radical behaviorism, and (b) to circumvent the frequent misunderstandings that characterize the discussions between behavior analysts and their critics. The nature of ACT and FAP methods appears to dispel many common myths about contemporary behavior analysis.