The interactions or dynamics among the analytic units in the MDML appear to facilitate discourse about human psychological suffering that seems to connect readily with the psychological flexibility model without having to invoke new so-called middle-level terms for RFT.
The MDML thus supports a bottom-up approach to reticulating RFT with ACT and psychotherapy generally.
The MDML seemingly facilitates the development of new models of arbitrarily applicable relational responding that can be tested in the laboratory, such as the Differential Arbitrarily Applicable Relational Responding Effects (DAARRE) model (see Barnes-Holmes, Finn et al., in press).
In making this argument, we are not suggesting that the MDML framework and the DAARRE model constitute the conceptual development in the basic science of RFT--they are merely examples from our own research group.
(2) Indeed, the MDML appears to render the whole debate around middle-level versus technical terms redundant.
Indeed, it is worth noting that the detailed treatment of the MDML in Barnes-Holmes, Barnes-Holmes et al.