Functional Analytic Psychotherapy: A Behavioral Relational Approach to Treatment

Functional analytic psychotherapy (FAP) is a relational approach to psychotherapy that is behavioral, yet involves an intensive, emotional, and in-depth therapy experience. FAP is approachable by therapists of diverse theoretical backgrounds owing to the minimal use of behavioral jargon, and can be used as an addition or complement to other interventions. The methods described in this article-being aware of clients' clinically relevant behaviors, being courageous in evoking clinically relevant behaviors, reinforcing improvements with therapeutic love, using behavioral interpretations to help clients generalize changes to daily life, and providing intensive and personal experiential training of FAP practitioners-maximize the impact of the therapeutic relationship to promote change and personal growth for both clients and therapists.