Recorded Workshop – 7 hours

Presenter: Dr Niklas Toerneke

If there was one tool that lies at the heart of  impactful and meaningful  clinical change, it is functional analysis. It is the cornerstone to behavioural work.

Since the days of Skinner, conducting a functional analysis has been at the core of behaviour analysis. Even today, functional analysis is central to psychotherapy models such as acceptance and commitment therapy, dialectical behaviour therapy, functional analytical psychotherapy and behavioural activation. Functional analysis is a crucial process by which we make sense of the complex problems our clients want help with. It is both our road map for understanding these problems and for knowing how to best get our clients unstuck and back on track again.

Traditionally, the theoretical understanding of functional analysis has been based on research with animals other than humans. However, with the arrival of a modern behaviour analysis of human language, relational frame theory (RFT), this situation has dramatically changed. We now have an increased understanding of how so called “private events” (feelings, thinking, remembering) influence human behaviour as a whole. This means our functional analyses can be used with precision, scope and depth across all the arenas of human activity.

This workshop will bring together the conclusions from RFT regarding complex human behaviour and show how this understanding can be applied in doing a clinical functional analysis in conjunction with the client, in such fashion that it contributes to the process of change. The workshop will include both a theoretical and a practical part. You will learn how to sharpen your functional analysis skills to undertake more efficient assessments, create a more powerful therapeutic alliance and design more impactful interventions.

What you will learn.

• You will learn the underlying mechanisms of functional analysis by revisiting the key fundamental theory.
• You will learn how to improve your functional analysis skills to undertake more efficient assessments, create a more powerful therapeutic alliance and design more impactful interventions.
• You will learn specific gold standard practical techniques in how to usefully do functional analysis.
• How to work with clients that present with more than one problem.
• You will have the chance to consolidate these skills with practice opportunities and observation of demonstrations.

Who is this workshop for?

This workshop is for practitioners who use Behaviour Analysis, ACT and other Contextual and Behavioural approaches in their clinical work. This is aimed at the intermediate level, which means that the basics of the behavioural model or other models won’t be covered.

About Your Presenter

Dr Niklas Törneke is a Swedish psychiatrist and psychotherapist, originally trained in cognitive therapy. Since 1998 he has been working with ACT and is continuously training and supervising ACT both in his home country and internationally. He belongs to the original group of peer reviewed ACT trainers. He is the author of “The ABCs of human behaviour” (with Jonas Ramnerö),  “Learning RFT” and “Metaphor in Practice”.