Volume 27, Issue 1
DOI: 10.24205/03276716.2017.1044
An Intervention of Traumatic Grief Using Functional Analytic Psychotherapy: A Clinical Case
Abstract
A case study with a 28 years-old woman, who had lost her mother three months before starting psychotherapy, was conducted. A traumatic grief was identified based on a functional assessment of her behavior, which was characterized by escaping of social judgment of her emotional responses. Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP) was conducted to reduce escaping behaviors and increase her expression of emotions, opinions, and needs in-session to generalize them out-of-session. A simple phase reversion single case design (A-B) was employed to measure behavioral changes across treatment, data were obtained through videotaping clinical sessions. Significant clinical effects were found with a reduction on behavioral problems (d= -1,90) and an enhancement of alternative behaviors (d= 2,38). FAP effectiveness in the treatment of traumatic grief and some explanations about in-session problems and improvements are discussed.
Keywords
traumatic grief; Functional Analytic Psychotherapy; third wave-therapies; singlecase experimental design