Dysfunctional control by client verbal behavior: The context of reason-giving.

The team watched six adults in therapy. Each client gave long reasons for why they felt stuck.

Therapists used "comprehensive distancing." They asked clients to step back and notice their own words instead of arguing with the story.

The study tracked what happened to the reason-giving and to the clients’ mood during the sessions.

When clients stopped treating their reasons as facts, the reasons lost power.

Mood lifted and new behavior showed up. The process data lined up with a simple idea: reasons are verbal operants that can be weakened.

Kingston et al. (2010) ran numbers on 300 adults and found the same core process. Experiential avoidance, not the topic of the story, drives many topographies of problem behavior. The two studies differ in method—case notes versus statistics—but point to the same verbal trap.

Cerutti (1989) sharpened the idea. Rule-governed behavior sticks because instructions create lasting discriminations, not because each rule earns a quick payoff. That lens helps explain why a single reason can control a client for years; D et al. showed one way to break that control.

Taylor et al. (2021) stretched the logic into teaching. If perspective taking is just another problem-solving chain, you build the precurrent verbal steps. Comprehensive distancing does exactly that: it trains new precurrent responses to one’s own reasons.

You already hear clients give airtight reasons for skipping homework or staying in bed. Treat those words as behavior, not truth. Ask the client to notice the words, repeat them in a silly voice, or write them on a card and hold it at arm’s length. One minute of distancing can loosen the reason’s grip and open room for new action.