Functional analysis is the basic tool of all psychological therapy. Through this, we seek to understand the reason for the maintenance, increase or reduction of behavior and answer the question of what makes a person behave in a certain way.
Its importance for the clinic lies in the fact that it functionally relates behavior to its environment, including antecedents and consequences, giving the possibility of understanding which contextual aspects are determining factors in it, and expanding the range of interventions.
Taking into account the importance of this tool, a team of professionals from the Center for Applied Psychology, belonging to the Autonomous University of Madrid, has developed a guide for the preparation of a functional analysis of human behavior.
Conducting behavioral analysis may seem like a simple task at first glance. However, as is evident in the protocol that you can download here, it requires a series of steps and prior knowledge, among which we can mention:
- define what we are going to call behavior
- a differentiation of the different types of learning
- the components that a functional analysis of behavior has
- modulating variables or environmental facilitators
- therapeutic objectives and intervention techniques.
Finally, the authors recommend extensive bibliography and present a case exemplifying what has been developed throughout the guide.
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Those professionals and students who wish to expand or make their first approaches to this clinical instrument.
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