Many researchers and clinicians believe that the therapeutic relationship is essential in bringing about clinical change. Empirical research to support this contention is scarce in part due to the difficulty of specifying and measuring theoretically derived mechanisms of change and the important dimensions of the client-therapist relationship. Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP; Kohlenberg & Tsai, 1991) is a behavioral treatment that delineates how the therapeutic relationship brings about clinical change in clear and measurable terms. While initial research has been conducted to demonstrating the effectiveness of FAP with different populations, the purported mechanism of clinical change in FAP has not been sufficiently documented. This study describes the creation of a behavioral coding system (the Functional Analytic Psychotherapy Rating Scale; FAPRS) to identify and specify the components believed to be essential in bringing about client behavior change in FAP. Interobserver agreement values indicated moderate to high levels of reliability for the coding system. Implications for future tests of FAP's proposed mechanism of change and the validity of the coding system are discussed.

Coding of treatment-goal themes with the BIT-T provides researchers as well as practitioners with valuable information that goes beyond psychopathological diagnoses. This information can be used clinically for treatment planning as well as outcome evaluation.

Psychology has focused too much on reducing symptoms of distress and ameliorating behavioral problems rather than attending to the rewarding, engaging, and good side of human life. This article offers a radical behavioral view of some of the epistemic issues relevant to the design of this new area of research, and it proposes a rapprochement between humanistic and behavior analytic psychology. Examples drawn from both humanistic and behavior analytic research are given to illustrate the utility of a deterministic view for a generative science of positive psychology and to offer an alternative conceptualization of control. The article considers how to design environments that evoke positive behavior from those within them and how to give individuals the skills to control their own behavior and circumstances in ways that will maximize their quality of life.

The historian and philosopher of science Gaston Bachelard proposed the concept of epistemological barriers to describe the intellectual challenges encountered by scientists in their work. In order to embrace novel ways of approaching a problem in science, scientists must overcome barriers or obstacles posed by their prior views. For example, Einsteinian physics presents scientists with claims that space is curved and that time and space are on the same continuum. We utilize Bachelard's concept of epistemological barriers to describe the differences between the intellectual journeys students pursuing advanced studies face when attempting to accept cognitive psychology or radical behaviorism. We contend that the folk psychological beliefs that students typically hold when entering these studies pose less challenge to cognitive psychology than to radical behaviorism. We also suggest that these barriers may also partly be involved in the problematic exegesis that has plagued radical behaviorism. In close, we offer some suggestions for dealing with these epistemological barriers.