Qual o Objetivo da Análise do Comportamento Clínica?1

Abstract

This paper consists in a theoretical-reflexive investigation on the establishment of goals for Clinical Behavior Analysis (CBA). The central purpose of this research is to discuss about the normative parameters that elucidate the purpose of CBA as a scientific development. Psychotherapeutic models are considered to be characterized not only by their use of certain techniques, but above all by their global objectives, that is, by the admission of guiding principles which are useful for defining therapeutic strategies and developing basic and applied research. Therefore, two different proposed goals are discussed: psychological flexibility, as proposed in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and self-knowledge, as proposed in Behavioral-Analytic Therapy (BAT). It is argued that such models define global objectives that determine criteria for the use of specific techniques and to what ends psychotherapeutic processes are in service of clients. Based on this debate, which clarifies the adoption of different criteria in those two models, discussion on the global objectives of CBA is presented as a critical perspective to the current context of research on effectiveness/efficacy and validation of psychotherapeutic models, as observed in the movement of Evidence-Based Practices in Psychology. For ACT, the global objective is presented as a development of psychological flexibility, that is, a superior class operant which allows an individual to discriminate his or her own private events and to react to such events in a way that enables actions committed to important ends. For TAC, the global objective is an improvement of client's self-knowledge, identified as an ability to respond discriminatively to their own behavior through a functional account of controlling variables, reaching, in that way, better conditions to effective change. The possibility of a complementarity between the objectives proposed by TAC and ACT is argued, since both psychotherapeutic models have distinct goals and there is a pragmatic need for scientific goals to be able to base both basic and applied science researches. It is argued that CBA's objective must be described in low level terms (terms generated through basic research), given that such a conceptual category allows for operationalization of analytical units subject to submission in experimental programs and verification. However, since the evaluation of such global objectives goes beyond the competence of empirical research, it is argued that the legitimacy of such proposals should be examined through dialogues between the fields of Behavior Analysis, Epistemology and Ethics.