Because of the Therapeutic Relationship!

Kohlenberg and Tsai's (who built on Edward Bodin's work) Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP) is a contextual, behavioural, relational approach to psychotherapy in which the therapist focuses on his/her responses to the client's target behaviours in order to maximize the level of client change necessary to increase emotional awareness, increase self-expression and maintain close interpersonal relationships, and live a meaningful life. The approach is based on clinical behavior analysis (CBA) and views this kind of therapeutic relationship as a means to maximize client change.

 

Therapists use the term 'Therapeutic Relationship' all the time, but when they discuss it, they are all too likely to talk about the qualities posed by Carl Rogers. While Rogers delineated the pre-existing qualities of a good therapist (unconditional positive regard, genuineness and empathy) these are requirements of the therapist as we have no expectations client will display these qualities, nor should we.  It was Kohlenberg and Tsai who researched the qualities of an effective therapeutic relationship and its components in the 1980s. They studied the function (rather than 'form') of client behaviours and changing many maladaptive behaviors that looked different on the surface but serve the same function.

 

In FAP, as in Third Wave therapies developing around that time, the client and therapist collaborate on the case conceptualization/formulation and setting therapeutic goals, rather than having one therapeutic target for every client who enters therapy.