La conducta de las operaciones mentales (apuntes criticos y reconstructivos)

Ordinariamente, las operaciones mentales se consideran el contrapunto de la conducta. En este sentido, se sitúan bien alejadas del alcance del análisis de conducta. El argumento que se desarrolla aquí, sin embargo, es que el aspecto esencial de las operaciones mentales es lo que tienen de operaciones, y no de mentales. El lenguaje es entendido en relación genética con la conducta operante manipulativa, y el pensamiento en relación con el lenguaje. De este modo, el pensar resulta una forma de hacer (de construir), y en esta línea son analizadas la solución de problemas y la creatividad.Frecuently, mental operations are deemed in opposition to behaviour. Because of this, they are considerated far away from behaviour analysis. In contrast, the argument that is developed here pointed out that most important aspect of mental operations is related with operations rather mental aspect. The language is understood in relalion of operant behaviour, and the thinking in relation of the language. Therefore, to think is of do, and in this way problem solving and creativity are analysed

Skinner’s view on hallucinations. Validity and revision

This work outlines the vision that B.F. Skinner held on hallucinations as psychological phenomena, and defends its validity and relevance nowadays. Our thesis starts with the Skinner’s conception on the behaviors of perceiving, imagining and dreaming. It is highlighted that, in Skinner’s point of view, the differences between perception on one hand and imagination or dreaming in the other, focus on what kind of variables control the behavior in question. Thus, the perceptive behavior would be controlled primarily by stimulus surrounding the person, while the imagination or dreaming would be by variables that are “under the skin” of the subject and, therefore, are private and directly inaccessible to the verbal community. On this basis, Skinner comes to an understanding of hallucinations as perceptual behaviors that occur in the absence of a perceived stimulus, similar to the behavior of imagining or dreaming, but, when hallucinating, the person, for various reasons, does not recognize his / her behaviour as controlled mainly by private stimulation. Finally we made some critical remarks regardingthe lack in Skinner’s psychology of a radical theory on the human person

Terapia de Aceptación y Compromiso aplicada a la esquizofrenia. Estado actual y direcciones futuras

El presenta trabajo ofrece una visión crítica y reconstructiva de la Terapia de Aceptación y Compromiso (ACT) aplicada a la esquizofrenia. Dado que la terapia partía de concepciones psicopatológicas transdiagnósticas, no fue difícil expandir el tratamiento al ámbito de los síntomas psicóticos, existiendo razones conceptuales, clínicas y experimentales que avalaron esta extensión. Se analiza y explica el procedimiento estándar de la terapia, ilustrándolo, cuando es posible, con viñetas con diálogos. Se resumen cada una de las fases y se adapta a las peculiaridades de la población a la que está dirigida este trabajo. Igualmente se hace una revisión de los resultados de la terapia, resaltando las dificultades encontradas y, en general, la pérdida de resultados sólidos en comparación con otras intervenciones menos sofisticadas. La parte final del artículo presenta varias propuestas de futuro, tendentes a mejorar la terapia, que pasarían, en primer lugar, por reformular el propio concepto de esquizofrenia como un desorden del “yo” y, por otro lado, por adaptar ACT a la cultura española partiendo de las concepciones ratio-vitalistas de José Ortega y GassetThis paper provides a critical and reconstructive vision of Acceptation and Commitment Therapy (ACT) applied to psychotic symptoms. Taking into account that the therapy was based on transdiagnostical conceptions, it was not difficult to expand the scope of the treatment to psychotic symptoms; with experimental, conceptual, and clinical reasons that supported this extension. The article analyzes and explains the standard procedure of ACT, illustrating, when possible, with vignettes. Each of the phases of the Therapy are summarized and adapted to the peculiarities of psychotic patients. Also a review of the results of the therapy is exposed, highlighting the difficulties found for its application and, in general, the loss of solid results compared with other less sophisticated interventions. The final part of the paper presents several proposals for the future, aimed at improving the therapy. The first one could be to reformulate the concept of schizophrenia as a disorder of the “self”. The second proposal for the future could be adapt ACT to the Spanish culture, with José Ortega y Gasset as a reference for this tas

The four causes of ADHD: Aristotle in the classroom

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is one of the most well-established and at the same time controversial disorders to the extreme of being placed in doubt. In the first of two parts, the established position is critically reviewed, beginning with showing fallacious reasoning on which the diagnosis is based, lacking clinical proof. Similarly, a certain rhetoric and metaphysics in genetic and neurobiological research is highlighted, where, for example, a meager accumulation of data is offered as robust conclusions, and correlates and correlations as causes and bases. However, that may be, the controversy is silenced in a dialog of the deaf between “defenders” and “critics.” with no way out in sight in empirical and scientific terms. A new meta-scientific position is necessary to analyze the science of ADHD itself and its social uses. In this respect, the second part introduces Aristotle’s four causes, material, formal, efficient, final, as an instrument of enquiry. According to this analysis, ADHD is not the pretended clinical entity as presented, but a practical entity providing a variety of functions. The implications would be rather different from the usual

PSYCHOTHERAPY AS A HUMAN SCIENCE, MORE THAN A TECHNOLOGICAL ONE

The current landscape of psychotherapy is as prosperous as it is disconcerting. Different therapies show comparable efficacy. Evidence-based practice has given way to a backwash of different movements. Psychotherapy process research leads to an archipelago of “niches of researchers”. In order to clarify this panorama, we have turned to the philosophy of science. The philosophy of science has made it possible to identify different epistemologies, reopen the distinction between positive natural science and human sciences and resituate psychotherapy on the human science side. As a human science, psychotherapy is, above all, a contextual holistic relational activity, person-centered and values-based, rather than a scientific-technical activity centered on “faulty mechanisms”. Wampold’s contextual model and a phenomenological-existential approach are milestones of this “new life” of psychotherapy, which is more human than technological-impersonal

El grano y la criba de los tratamientos psicológicos

Se presentan las conclusiones de revisar la eficacia (así como la efectividad) terapéutica para los catorce trastornos psicológicos siguientes: Esquizofrenia, Drogadicción, Anorexia y Bulimia, Trastornos de Personalidad, Hipocondría, Trastorno Obsesivo Compulsivo, Disfunciones Sexuales, Ansiedad Generalizada, Fobias Específicas, Agorafobia, Trastorno de Pánico, Trastorno por Estrés Post-traumático, Depresión unipolar y Depresión bipolar. De cada uno de ellos, se ha podido decir qué tratamientos están bien establecidos, cuáles son probablemente eficaces y los que están en fase experimental. Ello ha supuesto, por tanto, un proceso de separación y clasificación (criba). Es de notar que, en la mayor parte de los trastornos revisados, se cuenta con algún tratamiento psicológico bien establecido, aún cuando también puede haberlo de tipo farmacológico. Conviene resaltar igualmente que se echan en falta numerosos tratamientos psicológicos ampliamente difundidos pero que no se han sometido a estudios de este tipo. Aun cuando el panorama reflejado invita al optimismo, los autores se muestran críticos, cuestionando tanto la concepción psicopatológica de los trastornos como la sobresimplificación y limitación del carácter de los tratamientos que se deriva de establecer correspondencias específicas entre un cuadro clínico pre-establecido y un procedimiento terapéutico específico