THEORETICAL STUDY OF THE MOTIVATIONAL

UTTERANCES ISSUED BY THE THERAPIST IN SESSION

¿WHAT IS MOTIVATION? WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO STUDY MOTIVATION IN THERAPY? The concept of motivation is one of the great classics in Psychology and its use explaining the behavior of people has spread to

everyday language. For that reason it is among common terms that people use to understand or predict people’s actual or

future behavior.

Traditionally, motivation has been understood as being located within the person, which could explain some behaviors and have

a causal role for overt behavior change. In general, motivation is inferred from observing people’s behavior (at best) or,

especially, their responses in an interview or questionnaire, to immediately become the causal explanation of that behavior.

In the field of Clinical and Health Psychology, the Transtheoretical Model of Change and the Motivational Interviewing approach

the study of motivation following this line of conceptualization. In contrast, the Analysis of behavior has developed the concept

of establishment operation, which refers to environmental stimuli or operations that temporarily alter the functions of

subsequent stimuli and the likelihood of subsequent responses. This concept allows the study of motivation without using

inferences or cognitivist terms .

From this point of view the study of motivation in therapy would have to be carried out by the analysis of the effects of certain

utterances of the therapist on the client’s behavior. Specifically, we propose that the therapist’s motivational verbalizations focus

on those descriptions by the therapists about stimuli situations that are, have been or will be a consequence of the client’s

behavior.

Froján Parga, M. X., Alpañés Freitag, M., Calero Elvira, A., & Vargas de la Cruz, I. (2010). Una concepción conductual de la motivación en el proceso terapéutico [A behavioral conceptualization of motivation in the therapeutic process]. Psicothema, 22(4), 556-561. Kantor, J. R. (1970). An analysis of the experimental analysis of behavior (TEAB). Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 13(1), 101-101. Keller, F. S. & Schoenfeld, W. N. (1950). Principles of Psychology. A systematic text in the science of behavior. East Norwalk, CT, US: Appleton Century Crofts. Michael, J. (2000). Implications and refinements of the establishing operation concept. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. Special Issue: Establishing Operations in Applied Behavior Analysis, 33(4), 401-410. Miller, W. R. & Rollnick, S. (1991). Motivational interviewing: Preparing people to change addictive behavior. New York, NY, US: Guilford Press. Prochaska, J. O., DiClemente, C. C., & Norcross, J. C. (1992). In search of how people change: Applications to addictive behaviors. American Psychologist, 47, 1102-1114. Froján, M. X., Montaño, M., Calero, A., García, A., Garzón, A., & Ruiz, E. (2008). Sistema de categorización de la conducta verbal del terapeuta [Therapist’s verbal behavior coding system]. Psicothema, 20, 603-609. Montaño, M. (2008). Estudio observacional de la conducta verbal del psicólogo para el análisis del proceso terapéutico [Observational study of the psychologist’s verbal behavior for the analysis of the therapeutic process]. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid (Spain). Skinner, B. F. (1953). Science and human behavior. New York, NY, US: The Free Press.

How has motivation been studied? From Clinical and Health Psychology From the Analysis of behavior

Transtheoretical Model (MTC)

Motivational interviewing (MI)

Handbooks on therapeutic skills and coping with client’s

resistance in therapy

Skinner: three-term contingency and the influence of precedente

variables on reinforcement

Kantor: dispositional factors

Michael: motivational operations establishment +

abolishing operation

Our theoretical proposal is based on Michael’s concept of motivational operation: a change in the environment or the person that

temporarily alters the functions of the stimuli and the parameters of a learned response into a sequence that remains constant .

Unlike Michael, we assume that motivating operations alter functions when we can observe changes in the functionality of the

elements of a given sequence for which no operant or Pavlovian processes can be considered. Moreover, it is important to note

that the motivating operation cannot be considered an explanatory concept but a descriptive one.

Motivational operation

(contextual variable)

E R C

In the clinical

context: Study

of the

therapist-client

interaction

(SISC-CVT)

These verbal stimuli

specify

contingencies and

focus on the

CONSEQUENCES

VERBAL STIMULI

SISC-MOTIVADORAS-T (Motivation is used by the psychologist to facilitate

changes out of session).

The 3 criteria defining it are:

• The consequences should be described.

• The verbalization must contain at least one of the

elements described in a personalized way.

• Only those consequences of dysfunctional behavior

from the start of treatment are considered

motivational. (Time)

HOW TO CLASIFY

MOTIVATIONAL

VERBALIZATIONS?

HOW TO STUDY THE

MOTIVATIONAL

VERBALIZATIONS?

F. Linares, C. Marchena, M.X. Froján

E-mail contact: mxesus.frojan@uam.es

VERBAL BEHAVIOR is the

main activity that occurs

during therapy and through

which they are applied

treatment techniques. We

have been working on it

several years

Our proposal: How to study motivation?

Study will allow to

advance our

knowledge of how to

motivate the client in

therapy