How Relational Frame Theory (RFT) transforms behavioral therapy – recent applied strategies

Abstract

 The Relational Frame Theory (RFT) proposed by Hayes, Barnes-Holmes and several collaborators transforms how we understand the contingencies responsible for the development of human behavioral repertoires. The purpose of this study was to present this transformation, especially in the clinical context. In order to do so, in addition to a brief review of the main concepts, we presented a recently proposed organizational model and also equally new approaches to clinical intervention based on RFT. These tools emphasize that the impacts of the proposal made by the RFT since the 1980s and organized in the early 2000s go far beyond an apparent renaming of processes previously described in Behavior Analysis. The Theory of Relational Frames transforms our understanding of learning for verbally competent human beings.