Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Book Reviews 2012, Vol. 8 No. 3 http://www.the-iacp.com/book-reviews Copyright 2012 by the International Association for Cognitive Psychotherapy A Guide to Functional Analytic Psychotherapy: Awareness, Courage, Love, and Behaviorism. Mavis Tsai, Robert J. Kohlenberg, Jonathan W. Kanter, Barbara Kohlenberg, William C. Follette, & Glenn M. Callaghan. Springer (www.springer.com) 2009, 256 pages, (Hardcover). List price: $59.95 A Guide to Functional Analytic Psychotherapy is an important recent contribution to the cognitive behavioral literature. Since the initial publication of Kohlenberg & Tsai’s (1991) Functional Analytic Psychotherapy, FAP has developed a strong following among therapists interested in the relational and interpersonal aspects of psychotherapy and human functioning, yet who are too strongly committed to testable hypotheses and integration with basic science to forego their behavioral roots. FAP is a comprehensive, ground-up approach to behaviorally conceptualizing therapist behavior within sessions to create optimal contingencies for client change and treatment implementation. The uniqueness of FAP lies in the recognition that no specific therapist behavior will serve to heighten intimacy and trust in the therapeutic relationship when provided by therapists that differ by appearance, gender, ethnicity, or temperament; genuine behaviors arise from contingent responses to client behavior, and a mindful awareness of which client behaviors require a response. For this reason, there is a certain difficulty in capturing the sense of a FAP intervention due to the importance of both the functional assessment and the therapist’s use of her own style and self as an instrument of change; for example, a disclosure of a clinically relevant personal loss will vary by therapist (e.g., Tsai et al., 2010), and a reaction that one client perceives as warm or encouraging by one therapist might sound strained or disingenuous coming from a different clinician. Though increasingly labeled a “third wave” behavioral therapy, FAP is fundamentally grounded in the Skinnerian tradition of a strong behavioral assessment (i.e., the titular functional analysis) of the client’s interpersonal repertoire as experienced by the therapist. Functional assessment within FAP hinges on the accurate identification of clinically relevant behaviors (CRBs). For example, CRB1s refer broadly to problematic behaviors or behavioral patterns – the presenting problems that have led a client to therapy – that occur in session, whereas CRB2s refer to change behaviors in the desired direction. Therapist attunement to CRBs and therapist ability to respond effectively to naturally reinforce CRB2s and to recognize and effectively respond to CRB1s is the heart of FAP. FAP challenges the clinician to think specifically about the relevance of CRBs to the interpersonal relationship, which might lead to interactions that do not fit classic images of behavioral therapy. For example, a client might express that he is experiencing difficulty interpreting and labeling his emotions and internal states, and a sense of disconnection from his desires or values. When this client arrives to session and mentions a strange dream, the FAP therapist might choose to explore this dream in session as an opportunity to reinforce the CRB2s of noticing, attending to, and labeling private events. Again, a functional analysis is central, as discussing one’s dreams may or may not belong in the same behavioral class as the target CRB given a particular client’s history. A FAP therapist would track subsequent behavior to determine if discussing dreams increases subsequent attention and labeling of one’s emotions or other private events, and as this behavior increases the FAP therapist could apply shaping to extend interest in private events to more