ABSTRACT
The chapter introduces the concept of psychological flexibility as a broad descriptor of multiple interacting behavioral processes. Psychological flexibility describes a broad and expansive behavioral repertoire that maximizes contact with valued sources of reinforcement. Values are at the core of psychological flexibility models as behavior analysts are tasked with teaching clients to contact appetitive elements of their lives more fully. Because of human language, relational framing can lead to cognitive fusion and experiential avoidance as disruptive processes that shrink the behavioral repertoire and diminish contact with valued reinforcement. Moreover, rule-governed behavior can lead to insensitivity to changing contingencies resulting in continued engagement in experientially avoidant behavior despite diminishing returns. The behavior analyst must determine through an assessment of function the unworkable rules that clients are following and the context within which avoidance occurs. By treating psychological flexibility as the interaction of behavioral processes, behavior analysts can also identify specific skills to strengthen and augment through exposure and reinforcement as a functional alternative to the undesirable behaviors that led clients to seek intervention in the first place. Viewed in this way, psychological flexibility is both the process and the outcome of behavioral intervention.
