I am a psychologist trained in ACT here in Brazil and I really liked your way of explaining the RFT. It would be nice to see a video on the types of arbitrary derivations that the RFT describes.
Before watching this, I had encountered several explanations of RFT in various formats, e.g. book chapters, articles, videos, podcasts, etc. I was honestly starting to think that RFT was either trivially true or pointlessly convoluted psycholinguistics. It wasn't until encountering this video that RFT truly 'clicked' in my mind, and got me motivated to learn more. It's easily the best explanation of the theory and practice of RFT --- and how it applies to ACT --- that I've ever come across. I've recommended it to both students and colleagues. Great work!
This was so helpful to me! I'm attempting to understand the relationship between ACT, RFT, functional contextualism, and CBT and other behavior analysis methodologies for a paper and my head has been spinning until now! A great launchpad for the rest of my research. Thank you!
Tim, Great to see you back as the Zen Social Worker! The content you provide in this podcast is so useful for me as a therapist and is something that I will be recommending to clients who want to dig deeper into why and how this works. Your observation on the connections between our strengths and our struggle is so important. Thanks for your generosity in making this content freely available. Great broadcast quality too....
Funny thing - I was actually that exact paper (Hayes 2004) for my clinical psych class, got a little lost in the woods, and came to youtube for some clarification :) Thank you for explaining RFT so clearly!
Thank you kindly for taking the time to put this video out to the public! I am a therapist - newer to ACT and struggled somewhat to fully understand RFT. This video is amazing!! Makes complete sense👍 Love your channel and passion for the work❤️
Thank you so much for explaining things in such an easy an pleasant way. By reading about RFT I got stuck in my mind. By listening to you and visualizing your examples about clients it helped me to understand more about RFT. So thanks and greetings from the Netherlands 😁👍
@Tim excellent work. I am deeply touched with your sincere efforts. I really love RFT and ACT. IMO, ACT is the silver bullet to eradicate the human suffering. Thank you.
Thank you so much for this generous message. It means a lot to me personally that you can see the sincerity in what I’m putting out there and that you’d take the time to comment. Thank you. I’m in the same boat as you, I really think there’s something special to be shared in ACT with the world at large. If there’s something you and I can collaborate on, don’t hesitate to get in touch. 💛
You should make a video about functional contextualism, that would really help us to understand which is the origin of everything we've been listen to. I've really really like the video, I feel it puts everything very creal, thank you so much.
Long time listener of ACT in Context. Now I have an additional relational frame of knowing what you look like. Such a great explanation, looking forward to watching this a few more times then teaching myself on a whiteboard. Well done and looking forward to more of your work.
Rapidly appreciating the content you put - very helpful for clients & coaching. Glad no pets or dogs were harmed (or kicked) in the making of this video. ;)
This was such an amazing video! I really love the way you explain RFT. This, together with your explanation of it in your book with Jessica Borushok, The ACT Approach, has really helped me to grasp RFT a lot better! Please keep making these awesome videos!
Wow! Andrea, this is such a fabulous message. Thank you!! It means a lot to me that you’re following along and letting me be on this journey with you. 💛 If there’s any future videos or topics you’d like to see me produce, let me know!!
Timothy Gordon I would be interested in a video on your views on the choice point vs the ACT Matrix and why you choose to use the ACT Matrix (your life map version) rather than the choice point
I guess my biggest struggle as teraphist is when the client knows his values but he is stuck wtih the commited action. He simply dont do it, despite all the efforts i make. Thats what frustrates me the most@@TimothyGordon
Seamless explanation of RFT and its application in acceptance-based behavioral approaches! Also, I'm curious which stylus and tablet you are using to draw on-screen while streaming, as well as how you float the whiteboard over the video. Any information you are willing to share would be much appreciated!
Thank you kindly Drew!! Yes! I’m happy to answer: I’m using OBS to manage my video feed, microphone and the Apple iPad, it’s not perfect but it works well; within the iPad I’m using Paper, a wonderful piece of software that works nicely with the Apple Pencil.
BRAVO Tim! Fantastic delineation of applied RFT in such an accessible manner. I admire how you continue to disseminate incredibly useful CBS-related info. There's a question I sometimes grapple with that I'd like to run by you. With regards to the coffee shop example, let's say we derive relations between the triggering event and various symbolic stimuli (images, words, sounds, etc.) associated with the coffee shop that are incorporated into our "trauma" relational network, increasing the likelihood for subsequent derived relational responding after the event (e.g. triggered when seeing a coffee shop while driving or when coworkers bring coffee to a meeting). At the same time, isn't classical conditioning also at play here in that a previously neutral stimulus (i.e. the actual coffee shop with all of its intrinsic properties) has now been paired with an unconditioned stimulus (anxiety while standing close to someone), which in turn creates a conditioned (anxious/aversive) response the next time I physically enter a coffee shop? Curious as to your thoughts...
Thank you my friend!!! It’s so great to hear from you. You’re so generous in your feedback. I want you to know it matters to me. 💛 I’ll do my best to communicate my understanding of how the science works in the above example but it comes with a caveat: I’M A SOCIAL WORKER, DAMMIT! Haha Relational learning in my example is at play because the response to the stimulus event isn’t based on the physical properties of similarity but instead on the symbolic relationship. As a result of the experiential avoidance: having a trauma flooding experience and running out of the coffee shop - we estimate that some operant learning is happening, the consequence (outcome) of escape is reinforcing. And yes, now we’ve created a conditioned learning example in the repertoire. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say as much. Especially when we’re working with someone who now, as you’ve described reacts to let’s say that brand of coffee now showing up during a meeting, etc. Also, just for the sake of precision - we could argue that the relational learning isn’t a very clear example because interoception was based on the physical stimulus event but I’d argue it’s a great example because the trauma victims lived experience has nothing to do with someone coming up behind them or being in line, has nothing to do with the stimulus properties of where they are or who is behind them but is instead an arbitrary relationship they have to their experience of bodily sensations. You bringing this up illuminates a big lightbulb in my head: so many clients that I work with want to know WHY do they think what they think, how do they end up with these thoughts and I have a sophisticated answer but I’m not sure it’s what they want. I think these layered forms of learning, as you’re pointing out make sense out of how we interact with our private world in abstract, sometimes wonderful, and sometimes scary ways. What do you think?
Well said Tim! And thank you for taking the time to reply. I DO think your example, which is likely a common occurrence for folks with a hx of trauma, nicely illustrates the "arbitrary relationship they have to their experience of bodily sensations." I think I get tripped up sometimes on understanding involuntary bodily sensations, without any known or obvious verbal/relational frame (e.g. "This is bad") from the perspective of RFT. And, of course, since you put yourself out there, I'm coming from the backdoor perspective of an MFT whose graduate training was primarily humanistic and then came into behavior analysis through ACT. Nevertheless, I imagine that there are multiple levels of learning (classical, operant, and relational) simultaneously occurring and influencing our behavior at any given time. KUDOS again for such an effectively conveyed video and for all you contribute!
I have been following Tim with the Act in Context podcast and have been reading about rft. This video helped a lot! Great explanation. I really liked the comment of nit just acceptance but learning to grow new networks and relationships!
Really wonderful work here. I am an ACT practitioner and have always felt a bit intimidated by RFT, but you explained it in a way that was so easily assimilated and applicable to ACT. Thank you so much!!
Hi Tim, your videos have been so helpful and I appreciate your warmth and sincerity. One question I had in watching this - you talked about cognitive restructuring and my understanding after doing a lot of research is that the ACT/FC model or third wave behavioral approaches say cognitive restructuring is not the goal here, in fact quite the opposite. We are not trying to change broken parts/thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations. Am I misunderstanding? Thank you, again for your work.
Thanks so much Jed! I think there’s a desire for a breakdown of each of the frames which I’m happy to do and maybe make a video about using them clinically.
Thank yu for making this. I didn't fully get the notion of why RFT says that CBT cognitive restructuring doesn't work in the traditional sense. Were you saying that as we can't delete the relationships we are not challenging really, but only increasing the relational field?
Hi Graham! Thank you for watching and taking the time to comment. What my understanding of the literature is (and based on RFT workshops I’ve taken) that yes when we challenge thoughts we can inadvertently strengthen our relationship with them. There is however some cool experiments we could run as I’ve been experimenting a bit with restructuring/challenging/disputing in a playful way clinically. For example saying to a client “wow, wait.. did you just notice what your mind did there? That’s ridiculous. You are not ____ (insert painful cognition here), that’s not WHO you are, where did that just come from?” And variations like that. It’s been very effective in the sense of increasing flexibility, expanding the repertoire in the presence of that painful content.
Firstly thank you for this video, its awesome. I wanna ask you something about RFT perspective to self-critical thoughts. Where do 'I'm failing, I'm inadequate'' thoughts come from? How does this self critical thoughts occur?
This is a great question and sadly I don’t feel totally adequate to answer your question. So let me try in the spirit of new advancements. I believe one’s history of being bullied, perhaps directly told they were stupid or not good enough; had adverse experiences; consumed media or heard stories from others implanting a sort of random thought. These can become extremely repetitive due to the reinforcing nature of working through scary potential outcomes. Since the source is so varied, a contextual approach makes good sense. In this science, we focus on how a behaviour (including thinking, the behaviour of thinking) functions in the situation. So ask yourself, “how does thinking the thought I’m failing, or I’m inadequate make sense? Is it that I get something out of telling myself this?
I clicked on this video hoping I would understand better transformation of stimilus function and relational frame, but it's still somewhat confusing. I don't know if it's the language that's in RFT books and articles I'm reading that's too hard to grasp and understand everything or if I'm just trying to persue something that I already understand, because your video made perfect sense to me.
In some ways yes but you’d have to be quite liberal with drawing parallels as RFT is based on language development and basic behavioural principals in contrast to “explanatory fictions” as B.F. Skinner referred to object relations. I was trained in psychodynamic psychotherapy with an attachment focus and find many significant overlaps in practice but the theories have strong assertions that only at times play nice with one another.
Hi Tim, unfortunately late to the party, but I'd like to know if 'language makes us suffer' in exact this sense - does this mean if you speak several languages, eg. you grow up speaking three different languages at home, and they all become important enough to you to include an extensive vocabulary.... does this mean there is more potential for suffering? Or, likewise, if someone has an extensive vocabulary compared to someone with a really limited vocabulary?
You’re right on time!! Welcome and thank you for writing. The concept of “language” is meant to describe the cognitive activity such as thinking, analyzing, judging, evaluating, comparing, etc. Said technically precise, it’s “verbal behaviour.” I sometimes refer to this as languaging to show it’s something we do. Language according to RFT is different from how B.F. Skinner presented it. Your question: does learning or knowing many different languages/dialects impact how much one suffers is an interesting question and I feel strongly worthy of investigation. A colleague of mine who was a linguistics major described the role of language impacting different persons psychology, especially in how they constructed a sense of self. Please follow-up with more of you’re interested.
Hey Tim! Great material. I am a therapist interested in learning how to apply RFT/ACT with my clients. In your opinion, what is the best way to learn how to use this theory in practice? Thanks!
Thanks Josh for the positive feedback!! My new online course Journey to Acceptance & Mindfulness Mastery is an advanced, three month long course on exactly this! It starts June 12, 2020! It’s $600 Canadian. The course will have a heavy reliance on RFT to develop your own flexible in-sessions interventions. Please do join me: thezensocialworker.thinkific.com/courses/journey-to-mastery
Hi Ryan! My understanding is that RFT and Functional Contextualism are not the same thing. Functional Contextualism, and the larger contextual movement predates RFT and is a philosophy of science, with ontological assumptions. RFT is the science, evaluations, programs and methods describing the many different phenomenon of “framing.” Does that make sense or complicate things more?
Confusing, I know! Relational Frame Theory is the scientific program that is responsible for explaining and testing different kinds of relational frames. Multiple different relational frames make up arbitrarily applicable relational responses: mutual and combinatorial entailment are types of relational framing, and transformation of stimulus function is another type, all of which make up arbitrarily applicable relational responding, or said more simply socially constructing a symbolic meaning. Just as a full informed consent to you, I know I mentioned this in the video: I’m really not a behaviour analyst, RFT is a curiosity of mine but I’m not an RFT expert. I’d like to invite you to explore Yvonne Barnes-Holmes’ work, Mark Dixon’s, and Louise McHugh’s for a deeper dive into this world. I hope I’ve been helpful. 🙏🏼
@@TimothyGordon Thank you! I will follow up with those people...I appreciate the heads up on that. Though, your answer has been extremely useful. Could you please clarify what you mean by, "socially constructing a symbolic meaning"? It is the "social" part I don't get. Do you mean that the learning is due to an interaction between people?
Sorry for the lack of precision, no I didn’t mean social as it happens between people but that it’s socially constructed as in based on something that isn’t the physical properties - as an example humans do this a lot with rocks in an obvious way. We say that diamonds are worth more than other rocks and it’s not exclusively based on size, or how shiny the rock is, instead we have arbitrary definitions of value that we associate with a rock. That is socially constructed and involves the above relational frames I was describing.
@@TimothyGordon No problem!! :) Can you perhaps recommend any good books about RFT or functional contextualism? And btw... are you a member of the "ACT Made Simple - Acceptance & Commitment Therapy for Practitioners" group on Facebook? Russ Harris is the founder and it's a great group with lots of interesting information/discussions.
Yes I am a member. I’m sadly not active; I’ve been going through a really rough time personally. So messages like yours, especially brighten my day. Thank you. 🙏🏼
@@TimothyGordon I'm sorry to hear that. I don't know what you have been going through but you got my support :) I always tell people to go through the emotion, experience it, let it all out, take your time and after that you try to move on, one step at a time. I have no idea if that helped in any way but I wish you the best of luck my friend.
- Humans relate things and situations to feelings - Functional contextualism: understand the situation of how something works. Our escape works in the short term but not long term. There are different things we can do in the presence of painful adverse stuff.
Great video Tim, have been struggling with understanding RFT and its application in the therapeutic setting - lots of reading, taking Steven Hayes course and your video was my lightbulb moment! thank you!
Oh great!!! Thank you for that positive feedback. Please consider taking one of my courses, I have videos of myself working with real clients and the content is just like what you’re seeing here on the channel but more in depth. thezensocialworker.thinkific.com
"Theory" doesn't mean an idea that is unproven or unsupported. A theory is simply a model for understanding how things work. In therapy, we have systems theory, adaptive processing theory...in physics, we have the theory of general relativity, which is universally accepted as scientific fact, but we still use the term "theory."
It's called relational frame theory because the word theory has a different meaning in science. Remember, evolution is a theory. The best explanation that I have ever heard about this is that a theory takes sets of facts, and explains how they relate to each other. "Theory" is not a bad word, and it does not mean the same thing that it means in common parlance.
Very kind of you to write this out Samuel. I want you to know that it’s messages like yours that gives me a great sense that people watch these videos closely and they make a difference to people. You reminding me of that is a gift. 🙏🏼
I am puzzled by the statement that in order to change one's behavior one needs to dispute or restructure their thoughts. I was under the impression that ACT was a modality that, instead, changes our relationship to our thoughts..... without attention to their contents. I'm a total layperson, who has learned act through self-help books so perhaps I'm misunderstanding the underlying science? Disputing thoughts sounds like CBT... And giving our thoughts the attention to analyze and dispute with them only strengthens them in my completely layperson opinion. Much better for me personally to use defusion.
You’re correct! You may have misheard me, perhaps I was speaking too quickly, or I simply may have described things in a confusing manner. Your explanation is spot on. 👍🏼
Yes! Yvonne Barnes-Holmes, Mark Dixon. Yvonne along with Dermot Barnes-Holmes have done a great deal of leg work in laboratory settings. Mark Dixon’s PEAK program is incredible (using RFT among many other behaviour analyst tools).
Isn't an arbitrarily derived relational response in itself an arbitrarily derived relational response? It seems to me to be an overly complicated way of saying that all things are interconnected in helpful and not helpful ways, and in ways not even known. Isn't this the same thing that happens in dreams?
Transformation of stimulus function - beyond expanding awareness of negative responses to the stimulus how do we teach the client to learn new ways to expand the repertoire…. just some examples would help.
My therapist wants to help me build a coherent narrative about myself. Is that a waste of time considering RFT and ACT? I thought I should work on mindfulness and discover my values.
Hey Jack, thanks for taking the time to write. Narrative work and mindfulness/values aren’t mutually exclusive. They can go together quite nicely. Building a coherent narrative could involve many RFT processes and I’d argue that although ACT has a solid empirical foundation, identifying processes that increase health in humans, once you start seeing those professes, you see them everywhere. Even in narrative work! Ultimately the conversation you have with your therapist might be more about what techniques work with you. Perhaps ask them if they’re willing to introduce mindfulness and values work into your sessions? If they’re not versed in ACT, you can always augment your work with a local practitioner utilizing ACT or even do a few online Acceptance & Commitment Training sessions with my self.
I'm working on a presentation that compares Descriptive Psychology with ACT and wonder if you'd be interested in looking over my work to make sure it does justice to an ACT perspective. I'm a clinical social worker in Rochester, NY and will make a presentation to the Society of Descriptive Psychologists in October 2021.
Seems like the neural network approach in basic cognitive psychology. Bower was one of the first researchers that created a network model of emotion-cognition-behaviour in the 70s and 80s. But that stuff mostly stayed in academia and never got out of the lab in practical approaches, other than influencing (a bit) the traditional CBT model (e.g. Teasdale's model), in which cognitions, emotions and behaviours have reciprocal relationships (rather than in the traditional Beckian approach in which cognitions have primacy and lead to emotions etc.). So i guess its nice that someone tried to articulate it in explicitly clinical terms. But its' basic idea is not that "new" IMO. Very nice presentation keep up the good work. www.mitchmedical.us/cognition-emotion/bowers-network-theory.html
Fantastic job in explaining RFT in such a practical and non-jargony way as possible! I've always heard how confusing RFT terms can be and how convoluted they can become. I think this is because the terms are describing something extremely convoluted (our brains!). You make these easy to understand while providing us with practical examples that have really helped me gain better insight into how to explain these processes to clients that gets them excited and empowered. So, thank you for your video! I'd also like to plug Joseph Rhinewright's videos on RFT (ruclips.net/video/gtulP4l_fnw/видео.html) because they are nice companions to yours. He delves into the technicalities of the theory more, which I think pairs nicely with your video to provide a deeper understanding. Thanks again!
Let me know which prize you choose for the giveaway!! 😉
Shiny shiny rock 🙃
I picked the big rock. The big rock.
Have all the diamonds been claimed yet? Getting one would really be consistent with my values.
Saint Matthew they’re all just rocks. 🤷♂️
@@TimothyGordon So that's a no?
LOVEEEEEEE your finger example!!! I can't wait to use it!
Good intervention - finger and focus- gonna use that one!! Thank you
I am a psychologist trained in ACT here in Brazil and I really liked your way of explaining the RFT. It would be nice to see a video on the types of arbitrary derivations that the RFT describes.
Thanks Zana! Would you consider collaborating on a video with me!?
Amazing dissection of RFT dear Gordon! Learning therapeutic essence of ACT stands meaningful indeed!! Thanks a ton👍🌻✨
Before watching this, I had encountered several explanations of RFT in various formats, e.g. book chapters, articles, videos, podcasts, etc. I was honestly starting to think that RFT was either trivially true or pointlessly convoluted psycholinguistics. It wasn't until encountering this video that RFT truly 'clicked' in my mind, and got me motivated to learn more. It's easily the best explanation of the theory and practice of RFT --- and how it applies to ACT --- that I've ever come across. I've recommended it to both students and colleagues. Great work!
This was so helpful to me! I'm attempting to understand the relationship between ACT, RFT, functional contextualism, and CBT and other behavior analysis methodologies for a paper and my head has been spinning until now! A great launchpad for the rest of my research. Thank you!
Tim, Great to see you back as the Zen Social Worker! The content you provide in this podcast is so useful for me as a therapist and is something that I will be recommending to clients who want to dig deeper into why and how this works. Your observation on the connections between our strengths and our struggle is so important. Thanks for your generosity in making this content freely available. Great broadcast quality too....
Thank you my dear friend!!!
Funny thing - I was actually that exact paper (Hayes 2004) for my clinical psych class, got a little lost in the woods, and came to youtube for some clarification :) Thank you for explaining RFT so clearly!
Thank you kindly for taking the time to put this video out to the public! I am a therapist - newer to ACT and struggled somewhat to fully understand RFT. This video is amazing!! Makes complete sense👍 Love your channel and passion for the work❤️
This was excellent. thanks for taking the time to make such a high quality and informative video. be well!
Thanks for the positive feedback William! Let me know any other videos you’d like to see.
Thank you so much for explaining things in such an easy an pleasant way. By reading about RFT I got stuck in my mind. By listening to you and visualizing your examples about clients it helped me to understand more about RFT. So thanks and greetings from the Netherlands 😁👍
@Tim excellent work. I am deeply touched with your sincere efforts. I really love RFT and ACT. IMO, ACT is the silver bullet to eradicate the human suffering. Thank you.
Thank you so much for this generous message. It means a lot to me personally that you can see the sincerity in what I’m putting out there and that you’d take the time to comment. Thank you.
I’m in the same boat as you, I really think there’s something special to be shared in ACT with the world at large. If there’s something you and I can collaborate on, don’t hesitate to get in touch. 💛
You should make a video about functional contextualism, that would really help us to understand which is the origin of everything we've been listen to. I've really really like the video, I feel it puts everything very creal, thank you so much.
Consider me on the case!!! :) Thank you for taking the time to write me.
Great Job Tim. Doing a research paper on RFT. Thanks for breaking down this complex theory.
Thanks for saying so Anne! I hope your research paper goes well. Let me know how it turns out. 🙏🏼
Hi there -- great video. I use ACT myself, but mostly without an understanding of how the engine works. Glad to gain some understanding here.
Oh wow! That’s great. What would you like to see?
I’m beginning to produce new videos right now. :)
Long time listener of ACT in Context. Now I have an additional relational frame of knowing what you look like. Such a great explanation, looking forward to watching this a few more times then teaching myself on a whiteboard. Well done and looking forward to more of your work.
Rapidly appreciating the content you put - very helpful for clients & coaching. Glad no pets or dogs were harmed (or kicked) in the making of this video. ;)
An extremely elegant explanation of RFT! Thank you.
Nicely summarized and eloquently translating to real life struggles. Keep up, looking forward to see you again
so great. grad student here, looking for a layman's breakdown of RFT, and you've just hit it out of the park. thank you!
Thanks for saying so!! Let me know if you have any questions, I’d love to make a video answering them. 💛
This was such an amazing video! I really love the way you explain RFT. This, together with your explanation of it in your book with Jessica Borushok, The ACT Approach, has really helped me to grasp RFT a lot better! Please keep making these awesome videos!
Wow! Andrea, this is such a fabulous message. Thank you!! It means a lot to me that you’re following along and letting me be on this journey with you. 💛
If there’s any future videos or topics you’d like to see me produce, let me know!!
Timothy Gordon I would be interested in a video on your views on the choice point vs the ACT Matrix and why you choose to use the ACT Matrix (your life map version) rather than the choice point
Andrea Jennyc that’s a GREAT suggestion!! I’ll do that soon. :)
Tim im so gratefull for your vids. Been learning a lot and i admire your clarity.
Thanks so much for saying so!! Are there topics you would like to see me cover?
I guess my biggest struggle as teraphist is when the client knows his values but he is stuck wtih the commited action. He simply dont do it, despite all the efforts i make. Thats what frustrates me the most@@TimothyGordon
Seamless explanation of RFT and its application in acceptance-based behavioral approaches! Also, I'm curious which stylus and tablet you are using to draw on-screen while streaming, as well as how you float the whiteboard over the video. Any information you are willing to share would be much appreciated!
Thank you kindly Drew!!
Yes! I’m happy to answer: I’m using OBS to manage my video feed, microphone and the Apple iPad, it’s not perfect but it works well; within the iPad I’m using Paper, a wonderful piece of software that works nicely with the Apple Pencil.
Most helpful rft & act explanation and examples. Thanks
Thank you so much for saying so. Please let me know what else you’d like to see me produce for the channel. 💛
So so helpful!! Love your energy and personality!
Thank you kindly for saying so!!
BRAVO Tim! Fantastic delineation of applied RFT in such an accessible manner. I admire how you continue to disseminate incredibly useful CBS-related info. There's a question I sometimes grapple with that I'd like to run by you. With regards to the coffee shop example, let's say we derive relations between the triggering event and various symbolic stimuli (images, words, sounds, etc.) associated with the coffee shop that are incorporated into our "trauma" relational network, increasing the likelihood for subsequent derived relational responding after the event (e.g. triggered when seeing a coffee shop while driving or when coworkers bring coffee to a meeting). At the same time, isn't classical conditioning also at play here in that a previously neutral stimulus (i.e. the actual coffee shop with all of its intrinsic properties) has now been paired with an unconditioned stimulus (anxiety while standing close to someone), which in turn creates a conditioned (anxious/aversive) response the next time I physically enter a coffee shop? Curious as to your thoughts...
Thank you my friend!!! It’s so great to hear from you. You’re so generous in your feedback. I want you to know it matters to me. 💛
I’ll do my best to communicate my understanding of how the science works in the above example but it comes with a caveat: I’M A SOCIAL WORKER, DAMMIT! Haha
Relational learning in my example is at play because the response to the stimulus event isn’t based on the physical properties of similarity but instead on the symbolic relationship.
As a result of the experiential avoidance: having a trauma flooding experience and running out of the coffee shop - we estimate that some operant learning is happening, the consequence (outcome) of escape is reinforcing. And yes, now we’ve created a conditioned learning example in the repertoire. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say as much. Especially when we’re working with someone who now, as you’ve described reacts to let’s say that brand of coffee now showing up during a meeting, etc.
Also, just for the sake of precision - we could argue that the relational learning isn’t a very clear example because interoception was based on the physical stimulus event but I’d argue it’s a great example because the trauma victims lived experience has nothing to do with someone coming up behind them or being in line, has nothing to do with the stimulus properties of where they are or who is behind them but is instead an arbitrary relationship they have to their experience of bodily sensations.
You bringing this up illuminates a big lightbulb in my head: so many clients that I work with want to know WHY do they think what they think, how do they end up with these thoughts and I have a sophisticated answer but I’m not sure it’s what they want. I think these layered forms of learning, as you’re pointing out make sense out of how we interact with our private world in abstract, sometimes wonderful, and sometimes scary ways.
What do you think?
Well said Tim! And thank you for taking the time to reply. I DO think your example, which is likely a common occurrence for folks with a hx of trauma, nicely illustrates the "arbitrary relationship they have to their experience of bodily sensations." I think I get tripped up sometimes on understanding involuntary bodily sensations, without any known or obvious verbal/relational frame (e.g. "This is bad") from the perspective of RFT. And, of course, since you put yourself out there, I'm coming from the backdoor perspective of an MFT whose graduate training was primarily humanistic and then came into behavior analysis through ACT. Nevertheless, I imagine that there are multiple levels of learning (classical, operant, and relational) simultaneously occurring and influencing our behavior at any given time. KUDOS again for such an effectively conveyed video and for all you contribute!
I have been following Tim with the Act in Context podcast and have been reading about rft. This video helped a lot! Great explanation. I really liked the comment of nit just acceptance but learning to grow new networks and relationships!
Explained so in detail. Well Said!!!!
Thanks so much for saying. Your positive feedback has just made my day.
Stimulating!! You're putting words on how RFT can help to find some meaning to a therapy👌
Am a student ABA really benefited from your explanation
Better than my professor. Thank you!
Really wonderful work here. I am an ACT practitioner and have always felt a bit intimidated by RFT, but you explained it in a way that was so easily assimilated and applicable to ACT. Thank you so much!!
Right on Cynthia! Thanks for taking a chance on this video. I’m glad I can help and I really appreciate that positive feedback. :)
Amazing content. I'm a second year student and I'm looking forward to watching all your videos. :)
🤘🏽Rocking it,man! Love your explanation-so practical. Thank you!
This really helped me understand the theory. Thank you, Timothy!
I'm totally enjoying your videos. Also, 2 tech questions.....what microphone are you using, and what lav clip on mic do you use? :)
Thanks for the positive feedback! I’m using a USB mic: AT2020 and for lav: rode wireless GO with a rode lav mic plugged in.
Hi Tim, your videos have been so helpful and I appreciate your warmth and sincerity. One question I had in watching this - you talked about cognitive restructuring and my understanding after doing a lot of research is that the ACT/FC model or third wave behavioral approaches say cognitive restructuring is not the goal here, in fact quite the opposite. We are not trying to change broken parts/thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations. Am I misunderstanding?
Thank you, again for your work.
Thats really cool!! Science needs to be something easy to understand to everybody!!!!. Thanks Tim for make it happen🙌🎉😉
Thanks my friend!! I’m trying hard to make it useful to people. 🤗
I loved this video. You explain things so simply
Good explanation, and good metaphor with finger!
Thanks so much for saying so! Stay tuned, lots of new videos coming shortly. :)
Interesting that you are doing all this with a masters. You have done well.
Thank you for the compliment, it gives me a nice boost. :)
Perfect explanation!
Thank you for saying so.
The finger-in-face metaphor was great
Thank you for saying so!
Just found your channel while doing research for a project. Great job!
Brilliant. So helpful. Thank you, and I look forward to future installments, whatever the topic!
Thanks so much Jed! I think there’s a desire for a breakdown of each of the frames which I’m happy to do and maybe make a video about using them clinically.
Super useful video! Would love a video on those different types of framing.
I can totally do that! 👍🏼
Thanks for the positive feedback and suggestion. :-)
Haha, I loved it so much not only had I not pushed the thumbs down button twice, but I have pushed thumbs up - 3 times!
Hahahaha! You’re awesome. Thank you for saying so. :)
This is fantastic. Thank you so much for the explanation!
Wow Heather! Thank you for the positive feedback. 👍🏼
Thank you for this! Very helpful!
I loved the video! Perfect teaching. You just got a subscriber from Brazil 😍
Thanks Erica!! Hope you’re staying safe during the outbreak. Are there any videos you’d like to see me make that I haven’t covered so far?
Thank yu for making this. I didn't fully get the notion of why RFT says that CBT cognitive restructuring doesn't work in the traditional sense. Were you saying that as we can't delete the relationships we are not challenging really, but only increasing the relational field?
Hi Graham! Thank you for watching and taking the time to comment.
What my understanding of the literature is (and based on RFT workshops I’ve taken) that yes when we challenge thoughts we can inadvertently strengthen our relationship with them.
There is however some cool experiments we could run as I’ve been experimenting a bit with restructuring/challenging/disputing in a playful way clinically. For example saying to a client “wow, wait.. did you just notice what your mind did there? That’s ridiculous. You are not ____ (insert painful cognition here), that’s not WHO you are, where did that just come from?” And variations like that. It’s been very effective in the sense of increasing flexibility, expanding the repertoire in the presence of that painful content.
Great video!
Firstly thank you for this video, its awesome. I wanna ask you something about RFT perspective to self-critical thoughts. Where do 'I'm failing, I'm inadequate'' thoughts come from? How does this self critical thoughts occur?
This is a great question and sadly I don’t feel totally adequate to answer your question. So let me try in the spirit of new advancements. I believe one’s history of being bullied, perhaps directly told they were stupid or not good enough; had adverse experiences; consumed media or heard stories from others implanting a sort of random thought. These can become extremely repetitive due to the reinforcing nature of working through scary potential outcomes. Since the source is so varied, a contextual approach makes good sense. In this science, we focus on how a behaviour (including thinking, the behaviour of thinking) functions in the situation. So ask yourself, “how does thinking the thought I’m failing, or I’m inadequate make sense? Is it that I get something out of telling myself this?
@@TimothyGordon This topic is more clear for me now thank you so much.
This is so helpful Tim, thanks!
Thank you for saying so!!! Don’t forget to let me know if there’s videos you want me to make on a certain topic for the future.
Very helpful. Thank you!
Thank you awesome explanation
Thank you for saying so! What would you like to see me cover next?
I clicked on this video hoping I would understand better transformation of stimilus function and relational frame, but it's still somewhat confusing. I don't know if it's the language that's in RFT books and articles I'm reading that's too hard to grasp and understand everything or if I'm just trying to persue something that I already understand, because your video made perfect sense to me.
I think I understand. Something that might help are the RFT-based clinical trainings, whether by Yvonne Barnes-Holmes, Matthieu Villate or Kevin Polk.
@@TimothyGordon Thanks! It's just these concepts can be difficult to fully understand, that's what I think
Thank you for this content.
Thanks! Great work.
Thanks so much for saying so!
Are there any overlaps between RFT and Lacanian psychoanalysis?
In some ways yes but you’d have to be quite liberal with drawing parallels as RFT is based on language development and basic behavioural principals in contrast to “explanatory fictions” as B.F. Skinner referred to object relations.
I was trained in psychodynamic psychotherapy with an attachment focus and find many significant overlaps in practice but the theories have strong assertions that only at times play nice with one another.
You are a great teacher!!!!
Hi Tim, unfortunately late to the party, but I'd like to know if 'language makes us suffer' in exact this sense - does this mean if you speak several languages, eg. you grow up speaking three different languages at home, and they all become important enough to you to include an extensive vocabulary.... does this mean there is more potential for suffering? Or, likewise, if someone has an extensive vocabulary compared to someone with a really limited vocabulary?
You’re right on time!! Welcome and thank you for writing.
The concept of “language” is meant to describe the cognitive activity such as thinking, analyzing, judging, evaluating, comparing, etc. Said technically precise, it’s “verbal behaviour.” I sometimes refer to this as languaging to show it’s something we do.
Language according to RFT is different from how B.F. Skinner presented it.
Your question: does learning or knowing many different languages/dialects impact how much one suffers is an interesting question and I feel strongly worthy of investigation. A colleague of mine who was a linguistics major described the role of language impacting different persons psychology, especially in how they constructed a sense of self.
Please follow-up with more of you’re interested.
Hey Tim! Great material. I am a therapist interested in learning how to apply RFT/ACT with my clients. In your opinion, what is the best way to learn how to use this theory in practice? Thanks!
Thanks Josh for the positive feedback!! My new online course Journey to Acceptance & Mindfulness Mastery is an advanced, three month long course on exactly this! It starts June 12, 2020! It’s $600 Canadian. The course will have a heavy reliance on RFT to develop your own flexible in-sessions interventions. Please do join me: thezensocialworker.thinkific.com/courses/journey-to-mastery
Which program do you use? I like the presentación theme Thank you!
Loved the vid. Have you entertained the idea of becoming a Behavior Analyst?
I haven’t! I’ve known of some social workers who though. Do you recommend any resources for me to look into?
Brilliant. Thank you!
Thank you!! Please subscribe to follow along, I’ll have lots more new content soon. :)
Thank you! You have allowed me to pass my exam next Monday! :')
I LOVED THIS VIDEO AND YOUR CHANNEL!!!
Thank you for the great video. I just want to clarify, is RFT & Functional Contextualism basically the same thing?
Hi Ryan! My understanding is that RFT and Functional Contextualism are not the same thing. Functional Contextualism, and the larger contextual movement predates RFT and is a philosophy of science, with ontological assumptions. RFT is the science, evaluations, programs and methods describing the many different phenomenon of “framing.”
Does that make sense or complicate things more?
What is the difference between relational frame theory and arbitrary applicable relational responding please?
Confusing, I know!
Relational Frame Theory is the scientific program that is responsible for explaining and testing different kinds of relational frames.
Multiple different relational frames make up arbitrarily applicable relational responses: mutual and combinatorial entailment are types of relational framing, and transformation of stimulus function is another type, all of which make up arbitrarily applicable relational responding, or said more simply socially constructing a symbolic meaning.
Just as a full informed consent to you, I know I mentioned this in the video: I’m really not a behaviour analyst, RFT is a curiosity of mine but I’m not an RFT expert. I’d like to invite you to explore Yvonne Barnes-Holmes’ work, Mark Dixon’s, and Louise McHugh’s for a deeper dive into this world. I hope I’ve been helpful. 🙏🏼
@@TimothyGordon Thank you! I will follow up with those people...I appreciate the heads up on that. Though, your answer has been extremely useful. Could you please clarify what you mean by, "socially constructing a symbolic meaning"? It is the "social" part I don't get. Do you mean that the learning is due to an interaction between people?
Sorry for the lack of precision, no I didn’t mean social as it happens between people but that it’s socially constructed as in based on something that isn’t the physical properties - as an example humans do this a lot with rocks in an obvious way. We say that diamonds are worth more than other rocks and it’s not exclusively based on size, or how shiny the rock is, instead we have arbitrary definitions of value that we associate with a rock. That is socially constructed and involves the above relational frames I was describing.
@@TimothyGordon Ahh I see! Thanks for that clarification!!!! :)
Thank you so muchhh :)) Can you recommend some papers or article about RFT more? It's soooo interesting, and I wanna study more about it!
Dude you are AMAZING!!!
You reinforcing me feels amazing!! Thank you for the positive feedback. :)
@@TimothyGordon No problem!! :) Can you perhaps recommend any good books about RFT or functional contextualism? And btw... are you a member of the "ACT Made Simple - Acceptance & Commitment Therapy for Practitioners" group on Facebook? Russ Harris is the founder and it's a great group with lots of interesting information/discussions.
Yes I am a member. I’m sadly not active; I’ve been going through a really rough time personally. So messages like yours, especially brighten my day. Thank you. 🙏🏼
@@TimothyGordon I'm sorry to hear that. I don't know what you have been going through but you got my support :) I always tell people to go through the emotion, experience it, let it all out, take your time and after that you try to move on, one step at a time. I have no idea if that helped in any way but I wish you the best of luck my friend.
Grateful for your explanation of this! Broadening! Subscribed** =)
Awesome!!!
Thanks Lisa!!
- Humans relate things and situations to feelings
- Functional contextualism: understand the situation of how something works. Our escape works in the short term but not long term. There are different things we can do in the presence of painful adverse stuff.
Loved this! Thanks so much :)
Dude, you are wonderful. Thanks a lot.
It’s really kind of you to say so. Thanks a lot Robin. 🙏🏼
Love me some ACT!
Great video Tim, have been struggling with understanding RFT and its application in the therapeutic setting - lots of reading, taking Steven Hayes course and your video was my lightbulb moment! thank you!
Oh great!!! Thank you for that positive feedback. Please consider taking one of my courses, I have videos of myself working with real clients and the content is just like what you’re seeing here on the channel but more in depth. thezensocialworker.thinkific.com
"Theory" doesn't mean an idea that is unproven or unsupported. A theory is simply a model for understanding how things work. In therapy, we have systems theory, adaptive processing theory...in physics, we have the theory of general relativity, which is universally accepted as scientific fact, but we still use the term "theory."
I’ll def choose the small shiny rock👍😁🐾🎉
Thankyou for this :)
Thanks for leaving a comment. I’m glad this was useful to you.
Excelent! 😍
It's called relational frame theory because the word theory has a different meaning in science. Remember, evolution is a theory. The best explanation that I have ever heard about this is that a theory takes sets of facts, and explains how they relate to each other. "Theory" is not a bad word, and it does not mean the same thing that it means in common parlance.
Very kind of you to write this out Samuel. I want you to know that it’s messages like yours that gives me a great sense that people watch these videos closely and they make a difference to people.
You reminding me of that is a gift. 🙏🏼
@@TimothyGordon thanks! I'm trying to learn more about RFT & ACT and your videos are great! Appreciate your work. :)
Awesome
I am puzzled by the statement that in order to change one's behavior one needs to dispute or restructure their thoughts. I was under the impression that ACT was a modality that, instead, changes our relationship to our thoughts..... without attention to their contents. I'm a total layperson, who has learned act through self-help books so perhaps I'm misunderstanding the underlying science? Disputing thoughts sounds like CBT... And giving our thoughts the attention to analyze and dispute with them only strengthens them in my completely layperson opinion. Much better for me personally to use defusion.
You’re correct! You may have misheard me, perhaps I was speaking too quickly, or I simply may have described things in a confusing manner. Your explanation is spot on. 👍🏼
Please lets help spread this channel, people are missing the good stuff!
Thank you so much for saying so!
I am a behavior analyst - can you direct me to work done with RFT in my field? Any particular names of people I should research?
Yes! Yvonne Barnes-Holmes, Mark Dixon. Yvonne along with Dermot Barnes-Holmes have done a great deal of leg work in laboratory settings. Mark Dixon’s PEAK program is incredible (using RFT among many other behaviour analyst tools).
Theory isn't just some written down idea; that would be a notion. Even an hypothesis would be more rigorous than a notion.
Isn't an arbitrarily derived relational response in itself an arbitrarily derived relational response? It seems to me to be an overly complicated way of saying that all things are interconnected in helpful and not helpful ways, and in ways not even known. Isn't this the same thing that happens in dreams?
Transformation of stimulus function - beyond expanding awareness of negative responses to the stimulus how do we teach the client to learn new ways to expand the repertoire…. just some examples would help.
Teach new responses and use relational frames for experimental ways to consider new types of response!
I’d love to make a video on this topic for you!
My therapist wants to help me build a coherent narrative about myself. Is that a waste of time considering RFT and ACT? I thought I should work on mindfulness and discover my values.
Hey Jack, thanks for taking the time to write. Narrative work and mindfulness/values aren’t mutually exclusive. They can go together quite nicely. Building a coherent narrative could involve many RFT processes and I’d argue that although ACT has a solid empirical foundation, identifying processes that increase health in humans, once you start seeing those professes, you see them everywhere. Even in narrative work! Ultimately the conversation you have with your therapist might be more about what techniques work with you. Perhaps ask them if they’re willing to introduce mindfulness and values work into your sessions? If they’re not versed in ACT, you can always augment your work with a local practitioner utilizing ACT or even do a few online Acceptance & Commitment Training sessions with my self.
I'm working on a presentation that compares Descriptive Psychology with ACT and wonder if you'd be interested in looking over my work to make sure it does justice to an ACT perspective. I'm a clinical social worker in Rochester, NY and will make a presentation to the Society of Descriptive Psychologists in October 2021.
Thanks Charles, I’d love to. Please send me an email. :)
Thank you!:)
Thanks for following along! Let me know if there’s anything you need from me. Ideas for future videos, specialty topics!? :)
If a dog could read, it would salivate when it came upon the words red meat.
Seems like the neural network approach in basic cognitive psychology. Bower was one of the first researchers that created a network model of emotion-cognition-behaviour in the 70s and 80s. But that stuff mostly stayed in academia and never got out of the lab in practical approaches, other than influencing (a bit) the traditional CBT model (e.g. Teasdale's model), in which cognitions, emotions and behaviours have reciprocal relationships (rather than in the traditional Beckian approach in which cognitions have primacy and lead to emotions etc.). So i guess its nice that someone tried to articulate it in explicitly clinical terms. But its' basic idea is not that "new" IMO. Very nice presentation keep up the good work.
www.mitchmedical.us/cognition-emotion/bowers-network-theory.html
18:48….your welcome 😅
So, wouldn't this make the current trigger warnings misguided? That seems like fighting frames instead of accepting them and understanding them.
Fantastic job in explaining RFT in such a practical and non-jargony way as possible! I've always heard how confusing RFT terms can be and how convoluted they can become. I think this is because the terms are describing something extremely convoluted (our brains!). You make these easy to understand while providing us with practical examples that have really helped me gain better insight into how to explain these processes to clients that gets them excited and empowered. So, thank you for your video! I'd also like to plug Joseph Rhinewright's videos on RFT (ruclips.net/video/gtulP4l_fnw/видео.html) because they are nice companions to yours. He delves into the technicalities of the theory more, which I think pairs nicely with your video to provide a deeper understanding. Thanks again!
Thank you so much for the positive feedback and YES!!!! I’ve totally seen Joseph’s video. 👌🏼
Yes! It all makes sooo much sense!!! My summer reading list include The ABCs of Human Behavior. Do you have any other reccomendations?
That’s a great book! Check out Niklas Torneke’s Learning RFT.