01/14/2024
Our founder and CEO recently returned from the most amazing opportunity to learn more about ACT directly from Dr. Mark Dixon. The information below is from the Praxis website:
"When behaviorism was first developed, it restricted the direct scientific analysis of thoughts, feelings, and other private events, which was in stark contrast to the dominating schools of psychology at the time.
It wasn’t until the mid-20th century that B. F. Skinner opened the door to addressing private events in behavior analysis by concluding that a scientifically valid study of thoughts and feelings was possible — but he stopped short of saying that it was needed to understand overt behavior.
The next step was to provide a relatively adequate empirical analysis of language and cognition — one that would provide both the conceptual and technical means of addressing verbal behavior across the full age range within behavior analysis.
That step was undertaken by the functional contextualist wing of radical behaviorism beginning in the 1980s with the development of relational frame theory (RFT). (Full disclosure from Steve Hayes: originating RFT was my attempt to rise to this challenge!)
According to RFT, the core of human language and cognition is the ability to learn to relate objects, thoughts, and events to one another and thereby change behavior. Specific forms of relationships are called “relational frames.”
Relational framing, which typically begins at 12–18 months and then rapidly expands, can alter the function of the traditional ABC contingency for anyone with sufficient verbal abilities.
What RFT provides is an explanation of how thoughts, memories, emotions, and other private events can influence the overt behaviors we are concerned with as behavior analysts — without reverting to mentalism — and the basis for tools that can be used to alter that influence.
When struggling to help individuals cope with aggression, self-injury, and other challenges, behavior analysts often get stuck because they have no way to account for the influence of these private events on the traditional ABC contingency model."
THANK YOU Dr. Hayes and Dr. Dixon for your research and training on an approach that has had such an incredible impact on the lives of so many!!
