Effects of rules and self-rule on Analytical-Behavioral Therapy behavior change reports

Abstract

The present study evaluated reports of rules and self-rules following in the clinical context. The research was conducted with two patients and one therapist in a clinic school in Brasilia. At initial sessions, the therapist emitted three rules for each patient and applied the reflexive questioning procedure in order to evocate three self-rules formulation by participants in specific contexts of their lives. The reflexive questioning procedure consist of sets of open questions chained in a logical way, formulated by the therapist with the function of evoking self-rules. Subsequent session content was then analyzed to identify which type of rules were most frequently followed during therapy based on participants’ verbal reports. Reports of follow-up rules generated by reflexive questioning were more frequent for the two participants in all life contexts. Based on the results found in this research, despite the limitations of experimental control, it was corroborated the hypothesis that listeners tend to follow more self-rules than the rules presented by other speakers.