Two aspects of psychotherapy expressed in the following two hypotheses were investigated in 36 college student clients and their six psychotherapists.(1) A minimal degree of communication between client and therapist, within the client's language dimensions, is essential for improvement in psychotherapy. (2) Improvement in ps) chotherapy is accompanied by a shift in the present-self of the client toward the ideal of the therapist as described within the framework of the client's language dimensions. Both hypotheses were confirmed. The results were related to previous studies and the apparent inconsistencies tentatively explained in terms of different psychotherapeutic settings and approaches.The personal characteristics of the therapist, his values, ideals and attitudes, and how these affect the process of psychotherapy, are increasingly coming under close research scrutiny. That this aspect of the therapeutic process is still relatively uncharted and in a fluid state is attested to by the paucity of studies in this area and by the inconsistencies of the results of the few contributions made so far.In his presentation of a formalized sketch for a theory of interpretation in psychotherapy, Levy (1963) postulates that "the effect of interpretation is predictable to the extent that therapist and patient possess a common core of language meaning and usage," which can be interpreted to imply that success is linearly related to the degree with which patient and therapist "share the same frame of reference." Carson and Heine (1962) found not a linear but a curvilinear relationship between the similarities of client-therapist MMPI responses and treat-
This review supports the meaningfulness hypothesis of rating extremity and, most importantly, supports the profitability of pursuing the implications of the extremity rating within Personal Construct theory, focusing upon extremity ratings as done within the individual's own language dimensions. As for the construct of meaningfulness versus pathology, this contrast can be accepted as heuristically valuable, although of questionable validity. A new series of studies could be designed to clarify whether, under certain conditions, pathology and meaningfulness are related. To design such a series of studies, it would be helpful to have a theory of personality and behaviour which might suggest possible conditions of relationship. Personal Construct theory can provide a context within which to consider this paradox of meaning and pathology.
Starting from Kelly's Psychology of Personal Constructs and a study by Cromwell and Caldwell (1962), the meaningfulness of self, ideal and other was investigated within the contexts of the client's vs the therapist's personal language dimensions. It was hypothesized that: (1) clients at the beginning of therapy will find their own personal language dimensions more meaningful than those of the therapist, as judged by two criteria of meaning—one internal and one external to Kelly's theory; (2) a positive relationship will be found between the two measures of meaningfulness. Findings give added support to Kelly's notions, and, in particular, to an approach to the assessment of meaningfulness suggested by this theory.
Twelve most improved and 8 least improved clients were used in testing the hypothesis that improvement in therapy is contingent upon the adoption by the client of the personal meaning system of his therapist. The hypothesis was rejected. There was a trend indicating that the most improved client tends to increase in his preference for his own frame of reference, that he tends to become more himself rather than an echo of his therapist. The least improved client tends to internalize the therapist's frame of reference. These conclusions are highly tentative, but suggest the importance of differentiating between “frames of reference” and “specific attitudes” and considering introjection in relationship to different therapeutic approaches.
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