Behaviourism · 1969
Functional analysis (clinical)
Behaviour changes precisely when one understands what conditions trigger it, what consequences sustain it and what alternative can serve its function at lower cost.
Clinical functional analysis is a model of case conceptualisation that understands problem behaviour in terms of its functional relationships with antecedents, consequences and contextual variables. In contrast with topographical or diagnostic approaches, it gives priority to identifying the function the behaviour serves — such as avoidance, obtaining attention, access to tangible reinforcers or sensory regulation — within a specific context. The aim is not to classify the behaviour but to generate individualised functional hypotheses that guide the precise selection of interventions. This approach was consolidated in the clinical field by Kanfer and Saslow's proposal, integrating principles of operant conditioning with a contextual outlook applied to the single case. Kanfer and Saslow's original formulation does not reduce the analysis to a closed taxonomy of functions or to an isolated ABC scheme: it organises an idiographic assessment across seven areas covering problem behaviours and assets, current maintaining conditions, hierarchies of reinforcers and aversive stimuli, biological and sociocultural development, self-control, social relationships and the sociocultural-physical environment. Clinical analysis turns scattered data into provisional hypotheses about which contemporary conditions control a class of behaviour, which consequences sustain its repetition and which alternative repertoires are available or need to be built. The formulation does not replace diagnosis where that is useful for communication, risk assessment or access to resources, but it avoids assuming that a diagnostic label by itself determines the function of the behaviour or the most appropriate intervention. Hayes's functional contextualism represents a later, kindred development in its emphasis on function and context, not a historical influence on the origins of Kanfer and Saslow's model. (Kanfer & Saslow, 1965, 1969; Kanfer & Grimm, 1977; Haynes & O'Brien, 2000; Virués-Ortega & Haynes, 2005).
Theory of change
Change occurs when a precise functional hypothesis makes it possible to modify the conditions maintaining a behaviour and to reinforce alternative repertoires that serve its function at lower cost.
Core ideas
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Behaviour is intelligible only in relation to its function
Functional analysis holds that a behaviour cannot be understood through its outward form or its diagnostic label, but through the conditions in which it appears and the consequences it produces in a particular context. Two topographically similar behaviours may serve different functions and require different interventions; likewise, one and the same function may be expressed through very different behavioural repertoires. (Kanfer and Saslow, 1965, 1969).
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A symptom can be functional and still be costly
A problem behaviour may reduce distress, avoid a demand, obtain support, regain control or produce access to valued consequences in the short term, even while causing substantial harm in the medium and long term. Understanding that function is not the same as endorsing the behaviour or minimising the suffering; it makes it possible to explain its persistence without blaming, and to design alternatives that do not leave the person without resources for meeting the need it was addressing. (Kanfer and Saslow, 1969; Ferster, 1973).
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Diagnosis does not replace individual formulation
Diagnostic categories can serve communication, research, resource management or risk assessment, but they do not in themselves determine which variables maintain a behaviour or what the intervention should be. Behavioural diagnosis gives priority to an idiographic formulation relating behaviour, current conditions, learning history, resources and environment, because the same diagnosis can house functionally heterogeneous patterns. (Kanfer and Saslow, 1965, 1969; Haynes and O'Brien, 2000).
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Excesses, deficits and assets must be analysed together
The case is not formulated solely from behaviours that are in surplus or missing. Kanfer and Saslow include behavioural assets such as skills, relationships, interests or contexts in which the person already functions effectively, because these resources can become footholds for treatment. Change is more feasible when it is built from available repertoires and not solely through suppression of the problem behaviour. (Kanfer and Saslow, 1965, 1969).
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Motivational analysis is individual and contextual
Reinforcers and aversive stimuli do not hold the same value for everyone or at all times. The model proposes identifying personal hierarchies of incentives, sources of avoidance and people who control relevant consequences, because an intervention will only be sustainable if it connects with what genuinely facilitates or blocks approach in the patient's life. (Kanfer and Saslow, 1965, 1969).
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History matters when it improves the present intervention
Developmental analysis examines the biological, sociocultural and learning conditions that helped to form the present repertoire, but it does not turn the past into a sufficient explanation or into the sole focus of therapy. Historical information is clinically useful when it makes it possible to identify resources, vulnerabilities, stimuli, unacquired skills or contextual changes that guide decisions about current contingencies. (Kanfer and Saslow, 1965, 1969).
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Functional hypotheses are provisional and must be tested
Functional analysis adopts a pragmatic and anti-dogmatic epistemology: every formulation is a hypothesis that holds only as long as it helps to predict the behaviour and to select an effective intervention. When the expected change does not occur, the clinician reviews antecedents, consequences, functions, measures and omitted variables rather than attributing the result to unspecified resistance or lack of motivation. (Kanfer and Saslow, 1969; Haynes and O'Brien, 2000).
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Stable change requires reinforced alternative repertoires
Eliminating a behaviour without building an alternative that can serve an equivalent function leaves the person vulnerable to relapse, symptom substitution or increased distress. Treatment must increase available responses, self-control competencies, social supports and natural consequences that make the new behaviour accessible and valuable in everyday contexts. (Kanfer and Saslow, 1969; Kanfer and Phillips, 1970).
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Relationships and environment are part of the formulation
The original model is not confined to an isolated individual: it incorporates analysis of social relationships and of the sociocultural-physical environment in order to establish which people, norms, institutions, spaces and resources participate in maintenance or in change. This widening avoids decontextualised plans and makes it possible to distinguish a limitation of the individual repertoire from a problem sustained by real environmental contingencies. (Kanfer and Saslow, 1965, 1969).
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Assessment is already part of the intervention
Operationalising a behaviour, recording episodes, identifying consequences and observing contextual variations changes the way patient and therapist relate to the problem. Assessment produces a shared language, reveals points of choice and turns apparently inevitable patterns into observable sequences that can be acted upon, provided the recording remains in the service of understanding and does not become a punitive device. (Kanfer and Saslow, 1969; Kanfer and Grimm, 1977).
Influences
- Operant conditioning
- The law of effect
- The experimental analysis of behaviour
- Behaviour therapy
- Idiographic behavioural assessment
- Learning and behaviour modification
- Contingency theory
Key references
- Kanfer, F. H., & Saslow, G. (1965). Behavioral analysis: An alternative to diagnostic classification. Archives of General Psychiatry, 12(6), 529–538. doi:10.1001/archpsyc.1965.01720360001001.
- Kanfer, F. H., & Saslow, G. (1969). Behavioral diagnosis. In C. M. Franks (Ed.), Behavior Therapy: Appraisal and Status (pp. 417–444). McGraw-Hill.
- Skinner, B. F. (1953). Science and Human Behavior. Macmillan.
- Kanfer, F. H., & Phillips, J. S. (1970). Learning Foundations of Behavior Therapy. Wiley.
- Ferster, C. B. (1973). A functional analysis of depression. American Psychologist, 28(10), 857–870. doi:10.1037/h0035605.
- Kanfer, F. H., & Grimm, L. G. (1977). Behavioral analysis: Selecting target behaviors in the interview. Behavior Modification, 1(1), 7–28. doi:10.1177/014544557711002.
- Haynes, S. N., & O’Brien, W. H. (2000). Principles and Practice of Behavioral Assessment. Kluwer Academic/Plenum.
- Virués-Ortega, J., & Haynes, S. N. (2005). Functional analysis in behavior therapy: Behavioral foundations and clinical application. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology, 5(3), 567–587.