Fuzzy Cognitive Map Model of the Formation and Resolution of Human Problems (MCB-FRP)

Theory of change

Change occurs when the formulation makes visible the dynamics that maintain the system and makes it possible to reconstruct meanings, weaken problematic loops and enhance resources, motivation and avenues of action compatible with the client's identity.

Core ideas

1. The formulation is a provisional model of the system, not an objective snapshot of the person

   An FCM represents a causal construction of the clinical domain made from a particular perspective, and its usefulness depends on its allowing understanding, anticipation and the guidance of change. The precision sought consists in modelling experience and its relationships faithfully enough without confusing the map with the territory; each formulation therefore remains open to revision, testing and reconstruction as the case changes or new information appears. (Botella, 2021, Mapping Psychological Spaces; Botella and Saúl, 2026, Inteligencia artificial generativa en psicoterapia constructivista).

2. Human problems are better understood as dynamic systems than as lists of variables

   Suffering may emerge from multiple factors whose interaction produces properties that cannot be explained by examining each component separately. Feedback loops, reciprocal relationships, non-linearity, uncertainty and attractors make it possible to understand why an apparently small strategy may alter a system considerably, or why reasonable interventions may be absorbed without producing stable change. The clinical focus thus shifts from locating a single cause to understanding the organisation of the dynamic. (Botella, 2007, Usos potenciales de la lógica borrosa; Botella, 2024, Procedimiento 2C3P-MCB).

3. Fuzziness is a useful property for representing psychological experience

   Personal meanings, the intensity of a problem and the causal relationships a person anticipates rarely function as purely present or absent entities. Fuzzy logic makes it possible to express degrees, intermediate positions and uncertainty and offers a formalisation consistent with the linguistic and graded character of human experience. This characteristic makes it possible to increase the precision of the model without imposing a false categorial exactness. (Zadeh, 1965, Fuzzy Sets; Kosko, 1986, Fuzzy Cognitive Maps; Botella, 2007, Usos potenciales de la lógica borrosa).

4. Clinical understanding needs to integrate the first and third person

   The first-person map preserves the client's personal theory, their constructs and their causal attributions, while the third-person MCB-FRP contributes professional knowledge about processes that usually contribute to the formation, maintenance and resolution of problems. Neither perspective is sufficient on its own for the purpose of the model: the formulation is enriched when nomothetic knowledge helps to order the case without distorting the client's idiographic construction. (Saúl, Botella and Sanfeliciano, 2023, Utilización de mapas cognitivos borrosos en supervisión clínica; Botella and Saúl, 2024, Explorando la formulación de caso con mapas cognitivos borrosos).

5. The maintenance of the problem depends on the balance between problematic and reconstructive forces

   The MCB-FRP simultaneously represents conditions that favour the problem and conditions that make its resolution possible. Predisposing, precipitating and maintaining factors and difficulties may intensify or stabilise the suffering, while resources, competencies and motivation enhance the process of reconstruction. Clinical planning must determine which subsystem dominates the dynamic of the case and decide whether movement requires reducing maintaining forces, enhancing solutions, or acting in a coordinated way on both sides of the system. (Botella, 2007, Usos potenciales de la lógica borrosa; Botella et al., 2022, Formulación de caso mediante Mapas Cognitivos Borrosos).

6. A desired change may be blocked when it threatens the coherence of identity

   The absence of movement towards an explicit goal may have an internal logic: changing a discrepant construct may, for the person, entail approaching another undesired meaning, losing a valued quality or altering a relational position that sustains their identity. FCMs of the Personal Meaning System make these dependencies visible and make it possible to formulate resistance as a systemic anticipation of costs, opening up the possibility of constructing routes of change that preserve what the person needs to protect. (Saúl et al., 2022, Fuzzy Cognitive Maps as a Tool for Identifying Cognitive Conflicts That Hinder the Adoption of Healthy Habits; Sanfeliciano, Saúl and Botella, 2025, Weighted Implication Grid).

7. Solutions must also be analysed for their systemic effects

   A behaviour or an interpretation may relieve a problem in the short term and at the same time act as a maintaining factor in the long term. Causal analysis makes it possible to follow its consequences through the network and to distinguish genuinely reconstructive resources from false solutions that reinforce dependence, avoidance, invalidation or other problematic circuits. This distinction prevents a strategy from being classified by the intention with which it is used and requires examination of the function it acquires within the system as a whole. (Botella, 2007, Usos potenciales de la lógica borrosa; Botella, 2024, Procedimiento 2C3P-MCB).

8. Simulation serves clinical thinking, not prediction with certainty

   Activating or deactivating nodes, modifying weights and observing the evolution of the system makes it possible to explore "what would happen if" scenarios, identify unexpected effects and compare possible routes of change before taking them into real life. The value of these simulations is heuristic and must be tested against experience, viability, context and the alliance; the non-linear, self-organised nature of human systems itself prevents the model's output from being turned into an exact prediction of the future. (Botella, 2021, Mapping Psychological Spaces; Botella, 2024, Procedimiento 2C3P-MCB).

9. The formulation must go deeper, from events to the structures that generate them

   Responding only to visible events may produce local changes while the recurrent patterns, relational structures and mental models that generate them remain intact. The 2C3P-MCB incorporates the iceberg model in order to trace this causal depth and links the analysis with systemic archetypes when these provide a useful hypothesis. The aim is to locate levels at which an intervention can alter the dynamic, rather than confining oneself to putting out successive manifestations of the same circuit. (Botella, 2024, Procedimiento 2C3P-MCB; Senge, 2006, The Fifth Discipline).

10. The shared formulation can become part of the process of change

    Representing the system visually allows the client to observe their meanings from a new perspective, to recognise previously implicit connections, to understand the function of particular behaviours and to take part in generating alternatives. Assessment thus acquires a therapeutic function when it increases understanding, agency and authorship without turning the formulation into a label. The map can simultaneously be a tool for assessment, communication, planning and reflection. (Botella et al., 2022, Formulación de caso mediante Mapas Cognitivos Borrosos; Botella-García-del-Cid, 2025, From labels to lenses).

Influences

• Personal Construct Psychology
• Constructive alternativism
• Relational constructivism
• Fuzzy logic
• Fuzzy set theory
• Fuzzy Cognitive Maps
• Implications Grid
• Systems thinking
• System dynamics
• Process and outcome research in psychotherapy
• Transtheoretical model of change
• Integrative Constructivist Therapy
• Social constructionism
• Narrative therapies

Key references

• Zadeh, L. A. (1965). Fuzzy sets. Information and Control, 8(3), 338-353. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0019-9958(65)90241-X
• Kelly, G. A. (1991). The Psychology of Personal Constructs (Vols. 1-2). Routledge. Trabajo original publicado en 1955.
• Hinkle, D. N. (1965). The Change of Personal Constructs from the Viewpoint of a Theory of Construct Implications [Tesis doctoral, The Ohio State University].
• Kosko, B. (1986). Fuzzy cognitive maps. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 24(1), 65-75. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0020-7373(86)80040-2
• Botella, L. (2007). Usos potenciales de la lógica borrosa. Aplicación de mapas cognitivos borrosos (MCBs) para el manejo de los casos clínicos en psicoterapia. Revista Argentina de Clínica Psicológica, 16(2), 103-119.
• Prochaska, J. O. (1999). How do people change, and how can we change to help many more people? En M. A. Hubble, B. L. Duncan y S. D. Miller (Eds.), The Heart and Soul of Change: What Works in Therapy (pp. 227-255). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/11132-007
• Botella, L. (2020). La construcción del cambio terapéutico: Terapia Constructivista Integradora en la práctica clínica. Desclée De Brouwer. ISBN 978-84-330-3124-2.
• Botella, L. (2021). Mapping psychological spaces: Psychotherapeutic applications of system dynamics in fuzzy cognitive maps of personal constructs. Revista de Psicoterapia, 32(118), 235-251. https://doi.org/10.33898/rdp.v32i118.474
• Saúl, L. A., Sanfeliciano, A., Botella, L., Perea, R. y Gonzalez-Puerto, J. A. (2022). Fuzzy cognitive maps as a tool for identifying cognitive conflicts that hinder the adoption of healthy habits. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(3), 1411. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19031411
• Botella, L., Barrado, E., Sanfeliciano, A. y Saúl, L. A. (2022). Formulación de caso mediante mapas cognitivos borrosos: Bases conceptuales y metodológicas y ejemplo de caso. Revista de Psicoterapia, 33(123), 79-110. https://doi.org/10.33898/rdp.v33i123.35946
• Sanfeliciano, A. y Saúl, L. A. (2022). GridFCM: A tool for creating fuzzy cognitive maps (0.1.0-alpha) [Software]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6476591
• Saúl, L. A., Botella, L. y Sanfeliciano, A. (2023). Utilización de mapas cognitivos borrosos en supervisión clínica en psicoterapia. Revista de Psicoterapia, 34(126), 133-148. https://doi.org/10.5944/rdp.v34i126.38710
• Botella, L. (2024). Procedimiento para la conceptualización de casos y planificación del proceso psicoterapéutico mediante mapas cognitivos borrosos del sistema de significados personales de los clientes [2C3P-MCB]. Revista de Psicoterapia, 35(128), 99-109. https://doi.org/10.5944/rdp.v35i128.41435
• Botella, L. y Saúl, L. A. (2024). Explorando la formulación de caso con mapas cognitivos borrosos: Conceptos, métodos y estudio de caso en primera y tercera persona. En A. Quiñones Bergeret y C. Caro García (Eds.), Formulación de caso: Hacia una psicoterapia de precisión (pp. 477-521). UNED. ISBN electrónico 978-84-362-8044-9.
• Senge, P. M. (2006). The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. Random House.
• Botella-García-del-Cid, L. (2025). From labels to lenses: Diagnosis through a constructivist approach to case conceptualization. Terapia Psicológica, 43(1), 93-116. https://doi.org/10.4067/S0718-48082025000100093
• Sanfeliciano, A., Saúl, L. A. y Botella, L. (2025). Weighted Implication Grid: A graph-theoretical approach to modeling psychological change construction. Frontiers in Psychology, 16, 1630920. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1630920
• Botella, L. y Saúl, L. Á. (2026). Inteligencia artificial generativa en psicoterapia constructivista: Conceptualización de casos y supervisión clínica con el modelo MCB-FRP y el Therapy Process Navigator. Revista de Psicoterapia, 37(134), 46-54. https://doi.org/10.5944/rdp.v37i134.49114