Abstract

CONTE, Fátima Cristina de Souza. Reflections about human suffering and clinical behavior analysis. Temas psicol. [online]. 2010, vol.18, n.2, pp. 385-398. ISSN 1413-389X.

Suffering, potential or present, is what motivates people to look for psychotherapy. Skinner (1974/1993) had already stated that Behavior Analysis was able to contribute to the scientific intervention towards human suffering. Today, Behavior Analysis' deeper knowledge, especially over verbal behavior and language, allows therapists to run more complex analysis regarding suffering peculiarities, specificities and its development process presented by each individual. This knowledge also supports the building of advancement therapeutical strategies, designed to its confrontation. Based on the premises that human suffering is a complex phenomenon, essentially verbal, and, therefore, unique to the human species, the present paper proposes a discussion about its development process, presenting the theoretical approach as well as establishing links between it and the suffering related to the problems that individuals bring to the clinic. From that point, the study also describes, briefly, two radical behaviorism therapeutic proposals - ACT and FAP - which were structured over common theoretical basis and represent relevant advancements in Behavior Therapy. By doing so, it is intended to show a sample of the knowledge produced as well as of the qualitative increase of resources which derives from its extension to Clinical Behavior Analysis.

Keywords : Human Suffering; Clinical Behavior Analysis; Behavior Therapy.

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