Functional behavior analysis: what it is and what it is for

In therapy it is necessary to broadly address the behavior of the patient. Be it the feelings, experiences, thoughts or beliefs of him, the psychologist must look for what influences the way in which the person who comes to him behaves.

Functional behavior analysis is a very useful tool that allows identifying the patient's behaviors, but without neglecting the context in which they occur or what is behind their occurrence. It is a fundamental analysis when planning and directing therapy or psychoeducation processes.

Let's see what this technique consists of, what it is used for and its characteristics.

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What is functional behavior analysis?

People who come to therapy can present varied behaviors, originated by multiple causes.

The functional analysis of the behavior allows to organize the most important information of the patient. It takes into account the social relationships of the person, their problem behaviors and the events that have become important in the origin and maintenance of the problem. Once this information has been collected, it is intended to seek explanations for the problem behaviors with the intention of finding a solution.

In order to better understand this tool it is necessary to explain a little above what should be understood by behavior. This concept includes both observable and covert behaviors of the patient. Not only are the physical actions carried out by the person taken into account, such as smoking excessively or consuming a drug; her beliefs and thoughts about the problem also become important.

The psychologist is not solely responsible for detecting what is not adaptive in the patient. You must find an explanation behind why the person behaves like this, relating it to events that happened before, that is, the background. Thus, when performing the functional analysis of behavior, it is necessary to find the relationships between what the person has experienced and their current behavior.

To exemplify this, let's imagine two people who are doing the same thing: not eating for dinner. Although both are basically behaving the same, in an analysis of this type not only we would detect this behavior in particular, but we would also try to find out why they are doing.

It may be the case that one of them does not eat simply because she has eaten a lot and is not hungry, while the other may look fat and have decided to eat less.

Schematically, the aspects that fulfill the functional analyzes of the behavior are the following:

• Identify antecedents and consequences of the behavior.
• Identify the variables that influence the person.
• Formulate hypotheses about problem behavior.
• Describe the behaviors.

When conducting an analysis of this type, two types of hypotheses can be raised: origin hypothesis and maintenance hypothesis. The former try to clarify how the problem behavior originated, taking into account the contextual elements present at the time the problem arose. The maintenance hypotheses try to explain why the behavior continues to this day, what elements have reinforced it or why it has not yet become extinct.

As in this type of analysis one works with hypotheses, it is very important that the psychologist is rigorous and objective. What's more, new information will surface as therapy evolves, with which it will be necessary to rethink the problem for which the patient came at first and reformulate the explanations that were focused on developing an intervention plan.

Characteristics

Functional behavior analysis is a very useful tool, since differs from a mere descriptive analysis by meeting the following characteristics:

1. It is functional

Although the first thing that is usually done is to identify and describe the behaviors, this is done with a functional intention. Namely, It is intended to collect information to explain the problem and develop a therapeutic or educational action plan, and does not study static elements, but events and actions that can be located in time.

2. Focuses on the present

Taking personal history into account is an important aspect; Nevertheless, we must focus on how the patient behaves now.

3. Study relationships

The functional analysis of behavior is based on looking at the relationships between behavioral events (emitted by the subject) and environmental events (that occur around him).

Thus, it does not focus only on the individual, but sees this as a part of reality interconnected with its environment, contrary to what happens with psychological research proposals based on introspection.

Behaviors that significantly interfere with well-being are of particular importance. of the person, for which it will be necessary to focus the therapy towards the resolution of these behaviors.

4. It is dynamic

Human behavior is somewhat unstable. The patient can evolve as psychotherapy develops. In addition, it may be the case that the patient himself did not initially provide all the information necessary to understand his psychological discomfort.

That is why the psychologist you must be aware that the hypotheses raised at the beginning can be disproved, and you should rework them based on the new information.

5. It is ideographic

Each person is different when it comes to their personality, behavior and experiences.

The hypotheses raised after analyzing the behaviors they can only explain why the behavior of the person analyzed, since it is linked to a chain of unique and unrepeatable events, which leave a mark on their learning history.

That is, what is discovered in one person is difficult to generalize to the rest of the population.

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6. It is heuristic

Basically this type of analysis is a scheme that describes the behavior of the person, through which we organize the information obtained about it. It does not pretend to describe human reality, only that of the patient who has come for consultation.

7. It's hypothetical

Although the ideal would be to be able to explain precisely why the person behaves like this, functional analysis of behavior is still a tool that raises explanations hypothetical.

That is, what is believed to be the origin of the problem and what makes it persist can be modified, it is not information that implies a clear and immovable causality.

Bibliographic references:

• Fuentes-Ortega, J. and Quiroga-Romero, E. (2004). The two inalienable principles of functional analysis of behavior and radical behaviorism. Psicothema, 6 (4), 555-562.
• Zanón, I., Matías, T., Luque, A., Moreno-Agostino, D., Aranda, E., Morales, C.,... and Márquez-González, M. (2014) Guide for the Preparation of a Functional Analysis of Human Behavior: Faculty of Psychology. Autonomous University of Madrid. Recovered from: http://www.uam.es/UAM/CPA.