Naturalistic Behavioural Therapy: A Proposal for Behaviour-Led, Ecologically Situated Psychological Intervention

Naturalistic Behavioural Therapy (NBT) is proposed as a behaviour-led therapeutic framework in which purposeful action within naturally occurring environments generates experiences, environmental consequences, and interpersonal feedback that may broaden perspective, update cognition, and contribute to emotional change. The model integrates evidence from behavioural activation, functional analysis, inhibitory learning, belief updating, ambulatory assessment, ecological momentary assessment, and ecological momentary intervention. NBT does not reject cognition; rather, it hypothesises that cognitive change may occur downstream of behavioural experience and therefore need not always be the first therapeutic target. The proposed mechanism is behavioural change → naturalistic experience → environmental/interpersonal feedback → perspective broadening → cognitive updating → affective change → behavioural adaptation. Existing evidence supports several constituent mechanisms, but not NBT as a unified treatment. The framework therefore generates testable hypotheses concerning temporal sequencing, expectancy violation, environmental feedback, mediation, and clinical outcomes.