Integrating Functional Analytic Psychotherapy and Behavioral Activation for the Treatment of Relationship Distress

Abstract

The following case study demonstrates the potential for an integrated behavioral treatment to improve interpersonal functioning, specifically within a romantic relationship. This integrated treatment utilizes strategies from both Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP) and Behavioral Activation (BA), and thus is termed FAP-Enhanced BA (FEBA). This case study represents an initial attempt to apply FEBA to a 22-year-old female undergraduate, Megan, presenting with relationship distress. Megan and her partner both completed a pretreatment and posttreatment assessment that included self-report questionnaires in addition to a conflict-interaction task that was later coded for the presence of specific emotions. After the pretreatment assessment, Megan participated in 8 sessions of FEBA. Session-by-session descriptions and data will be presented, as well as data from the pretreatment and posttreatment assessments.