Meeting points between radical behaviorism and existential psychotherapy

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate about the possible meeting points between existential psychotherapy, a psychological paradigm rooted in existential philosophies, and the stance of Professor Marino Pérez Álvarez, who defines himself as a radical behaviorist regarding his way of understanding human existence and the most appropriate model of psychotherapy. With this purpose, six meeting points are suggested: necessity of philosophical grounds for psychology, criticism of scientism and medical model, interpretation of mental disorders as problems of everyday life, recovery of the patient as the focus of therapy, criticism of positive psychology and criticism to Cartesian dualism.