Abstract

SILVA, Antônio Sousa e  and  BANACO, Roberto Alves. Investigation of the effects of reinforcement, in the therapeutic session, over three classes of client's verbal responses. Rev. bras. ter. comport. cogn. [online]. 2000, vol.2, n.2, pp. 123-136. ISSN 1517-5545.

The present study aimed at investigating the effects of the reinforcement in the therapeutic session. The participants of this research were a behaviortherapist (who received training and instructions about the experimental procedures to be adopted in each of the four phases of the research) and a client in the beginning of the therapeutic process. The material to be analyzed was the data referring to eleven therapeutic sessions lasting fifty minutes each one. These sessions were recorded in an audio-visual systeni by the therapist herself. From these eleven sessions, the first two were used to Experimental Phase I (Baseline), and three consecutive sessions were used to each one of the subsequent Experimental Phases (II - reinforcement of private events reports, III - reinforcement of reports about relations between private events and externai variables, and IV - reinforcement of reports about relations between environmental events and overt responses). The results indicated that verbal behavior also is sensitive to reinforcement in clinicai situations, that it is possible, in a clinicai situation, lead the client to respond (to report) according to a conception of behavior as a product of environmental relations and, finally, that different classes of verbalizations of the client can be shaped. This study also made possible the proposai of a methodology of analysis of the verbal interaction between therapist and client in a typical clinicai situation, emphasizing the shaping of the clienfs verbal behavior.

Keywords : radical behaviorism; behavior therapy; verbal behavior; reinforcement and shaping.

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