Reasons, functions and causes
A philosophical approach to the explanations of behavior in contextual psychotherapies.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.61377/ehc.40556Keywords:
explicación del comportamiento, psicoterapias contextuales, racionalidad, explicación funcional, causalidadAbstract
The philosophical characterization of the explanation of behavior holds that two explanatory relations are central to its intelligibility: rationality and causality. In the present article, we will assess how fitting this characterization is regarding explanations of behaviors provided in contextual psychotherapies. Our assessment will yield negative answers in several respects. First, we will argue that, given that the goal of these therapies is not holistic understanding or normative assessment, rationality does not play a substantive role in its explanations of behavior. Second, causality is secondary in the diagnostic stage. We will argue that, at this point, the function of the problematic behaviors is what is trying to be understood. Third, causality does play a role in the intervention stage of the therapeutical process. However, we claim that this role is not the same as the folk model of philosophical characterization assumes. On a more positive note, we suggest that explanations of behavior in functional contextual therapy are hybrid, with functional explanations at the diagnostic stage and causal explanations at the intervention stage.
References
Bermúdez, J. L. (2005). Philosophy of psychology: A contemporary introduction.
Burge, T. (1993). Mind-body causation and explanatory practice. En J. Heil & A. Mele (Eds.), Mental causation (pp. 97–120). Clarendon Press.
Campbell, J. (2013). Causation and mechanisms in psychiatry. En K. W. M. Fulford, M. Davies, R. G. T. Gipps, G. Graham, J. Z. Sadler, G. Stanghellini, & T. Thornton (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy and psychiatry (pp. 935–949). Oxford University Press.
Craver, C. F. (2007). Explaining the brain: Mechanisms and the mosaic unity of neuroscience. Clarendon press.
Cummins, R. (2010). ‘How does it work?’ vs. ‘What are the laws?’ two conceptions of psychological explanation. En The world in the head (pp. 282–310). Oxford University Press.
David, D. (2015). Rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT). En R. L. Cautin & S. O. Lilienfeld (Eds.), The encyclopedia of clinical psychology (pp. 1–8). John Wiley & Sons, Inc. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118625392.wbecp077
Davidson, D. (1970). Mental events. En L. Foster & J. W. Swanson (Eds.), Experience and theory (pp. 207–224). University of Massachussets Press.
Davidson, D. (1974). Psychology as philosophy. En S. C. Brown (Ed.), Philosophy of psychology (pp. 41–52). Palgrave Macmillan UK. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-02110-9
Davidson, D. (1995). Acciones, razones y causas. En Ensayos sobre acciones y sucesos (pp. 17–36). Crítica ; UNAM, Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas.
Davidson, D. (2001). Interpretación Radical. En D. Davidson, De la verdad y de la interpretación: Fundamentales contribuciones a la filosofía del lenguaje. Gedisa.
Díez, J., & Moulines, C. U. (1999). Fundamentos de filosofía de la ciencia. Ariel.
Dindo, L., Van Liew, J. R., & Arch, J. J. (2017). Acceptance and commitment therapy: A transdiagnostic behavioral intervention for mental health and medical conditions. Neurotherapeutics, 14(3), 546–553. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13311-017-0521-3
Drayson, Z. (2014). The personal/subpersonal distinction. Philosophy Compass, 9(5), 338–346. https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12124
Dretske, F. (1993). Mental events as strucrturing causes of behavior. En J. Heil & A. Mele (Eds.), Mental causation (pp. 121–136). Clarendon Press.
Ellis, A. (1989). Rational psychotherapy. TACD Journal, 17(1), 67–80. https://doi.org/10.1080/1046171X.1989.12034348
Ellis, A. (2008). Cognitive restructuring of the disputing of irrational beliefs. En W. T. O’Donohue (Ed.), Cognitive behavior therapy: Applying empirically supported techniques in your practice (2. ed, pp. 91–95). Wiley.
Ellis, A., David, D., & Lynn, S. J. (2010). Rational and irrational beliefs: A historical and conceptual perspective. En D. David, S. J. Lynn, & A. Ellis (Eds.), Rational and irrational beliefs: Research, theory, and clinical practice (pp. 3–22). Oxford University Press.
Elster, J. (2006). El cambio tecnológico: Investigaciones sobre la racionalidad y la transformación social. Gedisa.
Forsyth, J. P., Lejuez, C. W., Hawkins, R. P., & Eifert, G. H. (1996). Cognitive vs. contextual causation: Different world views but perhaps not irreconcilable. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 27(4), 369–376. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0005-7916(96)00048-1
Ginnobili, S. (2016). Adaptación y función. El papel de los conceptos funcionales en la teoría de la selección natural darwiniana. Ludus Vitalis, 17(31), 3–24. http://www.ludus-vitalis.org/ojs/index.php/ludus/article/view/270
Godfrey-Smith, P. (1998). Complexity and the function of mind in nature. Cambridge University Press.
Godfrey-Smith, P. (2009). Darwinian populations and natural selection. Oxford University Press.
Graham, G. (2019). Behaviorism. En E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Spring 2019). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2019/entries/behaviorism/
Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. D., & Wilson, K. G. (2014). Terapia de aceptación y compromiso: Proceso y práctica del cambio consciente (mindfulness). Desclée de Brouwer.
Hayes, S. C., Villatte, M., Levin, M., & Hildebrandt, M. (2011). Open, aware, and active: Contextual approaches as an emerging trend in the behavioral and cognitive therapies. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 7(1), 141–168. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-032210-104449
Hayes, S. C., Wilson, K. G., & Gifford, E. V. (1999). Consciousness and private events. En B. A. Thyer (Ed.), The philosophical legacy of behaviorism (Vol. 22, pp. 153–188). Springer Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9247-5
Haynes, S. N., & O’Brien, W. H. (1990). Functional analysis in behavior therapy. Clinical Psychology Review, 10(6), 649–668. https://doi.org/10.1016/0272-7358(90)90074-K
Hazlett-Stevens, H., & Craske, M. G. (2008). Live (in vivo) exposure. En W. T. O’Donohue (Ed.), Cognitive behavior therapy: Applying empirically supported techniques in your practice (2. ed, pp. 309–316). Wiley.
Heil, J., & Mele, A. (Eds.). (1993). Mental causation. Clarendon Press.
Hofmann, S. G., & Hayes, S. C. (2019). The future of intervention science: Process-based therapy. Clinical Psychological Science, 7(1), 37–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702618772296
Hornsby, J. (1993). Agency and causal explanation. En J. Heil & A. Mele (Eds.), Mental causation (pp. 161–188). Clarendon Press.
Hornsby, J. (2000). Personal and sub‐personal; a defence of dennett’s early distinction. Philosophical Explorations, 3(1), 6–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/13869790008520978
Kazdin, A. E. (2007). Mediators and mechanisms of change in psychotherapy research. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 3(1), 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.clinpsy.3.022806.091432
Klepac, R. K., Ronan, G. F., Andrasik, F., Arnold, K. D., Belar, C. D., Berry, S. L., Christofff, K. A., Craighead, L. W., Dougher, M. J., Dowd, E. T., Herbert, J. D., McFarr, L. M., Rizvi, S. L., Sauer, E. M., & Strauman, T. J. (2012). Guidelines for cognitive behavioral training within doctoral psychology programs in the United States: Report of the inter-organizational task force on cognitive and behavioral psychology doctoral education. Behavior Therapy, 43(4), 687–697. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beth.2012.05.002
Levin, M. E., Twohig, M. P., & Smith, B. M. (2016). Contextual behavioral science: An overview. En R. D. Zettle, S. C. Hayes, D. Barnes-Holmes, & A. Biglan (Eds.), The wiley handbook of contextual behavioral science (pp. 17–36). John Wiley & Sons.
Malle, B. F. (2004). How the mind explains behavior: Folk explanations, meaning, and social interaction. MIT Press.
Mantzavinos, C. (2012). Explanations of Meaningful actions. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 42(2), 224–238. https://doi.org/10.1177/0048393110392590
McDowell, J. (1998). The constitutive ideal of rationality: Davidson and sellars. Crítica, 30(88), 29–48. https://doi.org/10.22201/iifs.18704905e.1998.695
Neander, K. (1991). Functions as selected effects: The conceptual analyst’s defense. Philosophy of Science, 58(2), 168–184. https://doi.org/10.1086/289610
Olmos, A. S. I. (2018). El concepto de función y la explicación funcional de la neuroetología. Editorial Teseo. https://www.teseopress.com/elconceptodefuncion/
Páez Blarrina, M., & Martínez, O. G. (2014). Múltiples aplicaciones de la Terapia de Aceptación y Compromiso (ACT). Ediciones Pirámide.
Pérez-Álvarez, M. (2018). La psicoterapia como ciencia humana, más que tecnológica. Papeles del Psicólogo - Psychologist Papers, 40(1). https://doi.org/10.23923/pap.psicol2019.2877
Reyes, M. A., Olaz, F. O., & Salinas, A. N. V. (2016). Historia de la terapia contextual en México y Latinoamérica. En O. M. Rodrigues Jr. (Ed.), Algunas Historias de la Psicologia de Base Comportamental en Latinoamerica (pp. 39–62). Instituto Paulista de Sexualidade.
Risjord, M. (1999). No strings attached: Functional and intentional action explanations. Philosophy of Science, 66, S299–S313. http://www.jstor.org/stable/188779
Salmon, M. H. (1999). Explanation in the social sciences. En J. Earman, C. Glymour, J. G. Lennox, P. Machamer, J. E. McGuire, J. D. Norton, W. C. Salmon, K. F. Schaffner, & M. H. Salmon, Introduction to the philosophy of science (pp. 384–409). Hackett Publishing Company.
Skinner, B. F. (1981). Selection by consequences. Science (New York, N.Y.), 213(4507), 501–504. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.7244649
Sloan Wilson, D., & Hayes, S. C. (Eds.). (2018). Evolution and contextual behavioral science: An integrated framework for understanding, predicting, and influencing human behavior. Context Press.
Sober, E. (1997). Is the mind an adaptation for coping with environmental complexity? Biology & Philosophy, 12(4), 539–550. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006558002982
Taylor, C. (2005a). Comprensión y etnocentrismo. En La libertad de los modernos (pp. 199–222). Amorrortu Editores.
Taylor, C. (2005b). La interpretación y las ciencias del hombre. En La libertad de los modernos (pp. 143–198). Amorrortu Editores.
Thornton, T. (2010). Psychiatric explanation and understanding. European Journal of Analytic Philosophy, 6(1), 95–110.
Twohig, M. P., Abramowitz, J. S., Bluett, E. J., Fabricant, L. E., Jacoby, R. J., Morrison, K. L., Reuman, L., & Smith, B. M. (2015). Exposure therapy for OCD from an acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) framework. Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders, 6, 167–173. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jocrd.2014.12.007
Winch, P. (1990). The idea of a social science and its relation to philosophy. Routledge.
Zanón Orgaz, I., Matías Lago, T., Luque González, A., Moreno-Agostino, D., Aranda Rubio, E., Morales Pillado, C., García Tabuyo, M., & Márquez-González, M. (s/f). Guía para la elaboración de un análisis funcional del comportamiento humano. Centro de Psicología Aplicada. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. https://pavlov.psyciencia.com/pdf/Protocolo análisis funcional.pdf
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Nicolás Sebastián Sánchez
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
En todos los lugares donde aplique, esta obra está bajo una licencia Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial-SinObrasDerivadas 4.0 .
- Los autores/as conservarán sus derechos de autor y garantizarán a la revista el derecho de primera publicación de su obra, el cual estará simultáneamente sujeto a la Licencia de reconocimiento de Creative Commons que permite a terceros compartir la obra, siempre que se indique su autor y su primera publicación en esta revista.
- Los autores/as podrán adoptar otros acuerdos de licencia no exclusiva de distribución de la versión de la obra publicada (p. ej.: depositarla en un archivo digital institucional o publicarla en un volumen monográfico), siempre que se indique la publicación inicial en esta revista.
- Se permite y recomienda a los autores/as difundir su obra a través de Internet (p. ej.: en archivos digitales institucionales o en su página web) antes y durante el proceso de envío.
- Las licencias de las imágenes de terceros incluidas en los artículos pueden estar sujetas a otros términos; los autores/as son responsables de asegurar la veracidad de su origen, la información de la fuente original provista y su permiso de reproducción en esta publicación, que puede ser exclusivo.
