Frequently Asked Questions


What is Contextualism?

Both ACT & its underlying pure behavioral science (RFT) are based on "contextual" underlying assumptions.  It is a world view in which any event is interpreted as an ongoing act inseparable from its current and historical context and in which a radically functional approach to truth and meaning is adopted. These two aspects represent contextualism’s root metaphor and truth criterion, respectively. Contextualism has its roots in philosophical pragmatism, and is also closely related to the view known as selectionism.

What is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)?

Developed within a "functional contextual" philosophical framework, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a unique empirically based psychological intervention that uses acceptance and mindfulness strategies, together with commitment and behavior change strategies, to increase psychological flexibility. Psychological flexibility means contacting the present moment fully as a conscious human being and, based on what the situation affords, changing or persisting in behavior in the service of chosen values. Based on Relational Frame Theory, ACT illuminates the ways that language entangles clients into futile attempts to wage war against their own inner lives. Through metaphor, paradox, and experiential exercises clients learn how to make healthy contact with thoughts, feelings, memories, and physical sensations that have been feared and avoided. Clients gain the skills to recontextualize and accept these private events, develop greater clarity about personal values, and commit to needed behavior change.

What is Relational Frame Theory (RFT)?

There is a strong empirical and conceptual relationship between language and derived stimulus relations. An empirical relationship does not indicate that derived stimulus relations depend upon language or that such relations are mediated by language. When two dependent variables are correlated, one conservative strategy is to determine whether both variables are reflective of the same basic underlying psychological process. If the two areas do overlap at the level of behavioral process, then questions about human language may also be questions about derived stimulus relations, and vice versa.

This is the basic theoretical and empirical research strategy of RFT. The overarching aim of this behavioral research has been to integrate a range of apparently diverse psychological phenomena including, for example, stimulus equivalence, naming, understanding, analogy, metaphor, and rule-following.

Relational Frame Theory adopts the view that the core defining element in all of these, and many other inherently verbal activities, is arbitrarily applicable relational responding, and moreover that such responding is amenable to a learning or operant analysis.

RFT treats relational responding as a generalized operant, and thus appeals to a history of multiple-exemplar training. Specific types of relational responding, termed relational frames, are defined in terms of the three properties of mutual and combinatorial entailment, and the transformation of functions. Relational frames are arbitrarily applicable, but are typically not necessarily arbitrarily applied in the natural language context.

Mutual entailment refers to the derived bidirectionality of some stimulus relations, and as such it is a generic term for the concept of "symmetry" in stimulus equivalence. "Mutual entailment" applies if stimulus A is related to another stimulus B in a specific context, and as a result a relation between B and A is entailed in that context. Combinatorial entailment refers to instances in which two or more relations that have acquired the property of mutual entailment mutually combine. Combinatorial entailment is the generic term for what is called "transitivity" and "equivalence" in stimulus equivalence. Combinatorial entailment applies when, in a given context, A is related to B and B is related to C, and then in that context a relation is entailed between A and C and another between C and A. For example, if A is bigger than B, and B is bigger than C, then a bigger-than relation is entailed between A and C, and a smaller-than relation is entailed between C and A. A transformation of stimulus functions applies when functions of one event in a relational network is altered based on the functions of another event in the network and the derived relation between them. Mutual and combinatorial entailment are regulated by contextual cues (C rel). The transformation of stimulus functions are regulated by additional contextual cues (C func).

Where can I find resources on Contextual Behavioral Science?

Below are links to websites that provide both free and paid resources:

Where can I find ACT therapists and practitioners?

ACBS International provides a directory of members who identify themselves as ACT and CBS therapists and practitioners. You can find this directory on their website here.