Abstract

COSTA, Nazaré. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: Is it a Cognitive Intervention Model?. Perspectivas [online]. 2012, vol.3, n.2, pp. 117-126. ISSN 2177-3548.

The Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), proposed by Steven Hayes in the late '80s, has been included, often even by its founder, among the cognitive and behavioral therapies. Different can be the discomforts with the proposal, with the specific grounding used (Relational Frame Theory) and Hayes himself. However, it is argued that even using terms which are largely avoided by behavior analysts, as mind and cognition, for example, the ACT consists of a therapeutic model fully compatible with Skinner's Radical Behaviorism and the Behavior Analysis. Among the philosophical ideas in common with the radical behaviorism, we highlight the view behavior as a relational phenomenon and thought/cognition as a behavioral event and not causal. Therefore, this paper seeks to discuss the extent to which ACT can be characterized as a cognitive or only behavioral model of intervention.

Keywords : Acceptance and commitment therapy; behavioral model; cognitive model; clinical behavioral analysis.

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