Treatment of a disorder of self through Functional Analytic Psychotherapy.

Abstract

This paper presents a clinical case study of a depressed female, treated by means of Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP) based on the theory and techniques for treating an “unstable self” (Kohlenberg & Tsai, 1991), instead of the classic treatment for depression. The client was a 20-year-old college student. The trigger for her problems was a sentimental break-up in addition to a degree of academic failure. She reported difficulty knowing how she felt, what she wanted, what she thought. At pretreatment, her scores on self-report questionnaires (the BDI, AAQ, and EOSS) were high, indicating moderate depression, no acceptance of feelings, and a high level of public control of self. The treatment lasted 23 sessions, with a follow-up 13 months later. Results showed the elimination of diagnostic criteria based on her behaviors in and out of sessions, and a considerable decrease in her scores in questionnaires, suggesting that FAP techniques targeting problems with the self may be clinically useful.