93When the female therapists, who experienced positive affect more frequently than males, felt themselves to be noticeably lacking in expansive and nurturant feelings, their patients tended to be experiencing a heightened dependency in either an active, intrusive, or a passive form. If the greater supportive warmth and nurturance of the female therapists is to some extent reactive to their own needs for dependent gratification, then manifest dependency in their patients might well tend to be distressing. SUMMARY This study was concerned with what therapists typically feel in psychotherapy sessions, what the structure of these feelings was, and how these feeling clusters were related to the patient's experiences. In general, salient therapist feelings were role-sjmtonic. There were nine dimensions of therapist affective experience and some of these were related to patient experiences. The value of these relationships as practical cues and for a greater understanding of psychotherapy process are discussed. REFERENCES 1. F R O M M -~C H M A N N , FRIEDA. Principled of Zn(cnsiyc Puyddcrapy. Chicago: Phoenix Books, 1960. 2. HOWARD, K. I., OBLINSKY, D. E., and HILL, J. A. The patient's experience of psychotherapy: Soms dimensions and determinante. Mult. *. Rmaarch, 198?,in p m . 3. OBLINBKY, D. E. and H o w m , K. I. Dimensions of conlomt experiential process in psych+ therapy relationshi . Ptocasdings, 76th Annual Conosntum, APA, 1907,251-252. 4. OBLINSKY, D. ?and HOWARD, K. I. The exp+ence of psychothera A prce tus on the psychotherapy m i o n pro ect. Institute for Juvenlle Reeearch, Rmeurch %port, l G . 5. OBLINBKY, D. E. and bow-, K. I. Varieties of psychotherapy experience. Institute for Juvenile €'bearch Rssmtch 1968'1. 6. RAUBB, H. and BORDIN,?? Warmth in personality development and in psychotherapy. P idry, 1957 bo: 351-363. 7. %ma, C. fh&-C'&ed Therapy. Boston: Houghton-Iblifh, 1951 8. R.oym, C. A theory of thdlapy pemodity, and lnte m o d ralrrtionships, as developed in the client centered framework. In hsycidogy: A Study o$A Sciaec, V d u m 3. 9. Koch (Ed.).
PROBLEMDuring the past 25 years, the fields of counseling and therapy have specialized in nondirective reflecting to the point where reflection has become a process sine qua non. However, attention recently haa focused on going beyond reflection; research(** has revealed that the therapist or counselor can constructively add to what the client expresses. We can "add" by confronting the client with what he has not said between the lines, or what he has implied apart from the utilized content, or with any of the various implications of what he has said at deeper levels of meaning. If whatever we add amounts to focusing on a codict, then we have "conflict attention".An important aspect of adding is that the therapist actively and directly helps the client to focus on and hopefully work through conflicts. For example, a client or patient may express a strong dislike for where he is or what he is doing, but the very fact that he. more or less voluntarily remains and continues constitutes a conflict since he may need the environmental security or other situational rewards, or he may still have hopes of the situation changing into a better one for him, or he might complain regardless of where he was or what he was doing. Nondirectively to reflect the feelings of dislike and unhappiness overlooks and avoids important therapeutic material that can be used in conflict attention to help him achieve conflict resolution. Kell and Mueller@) have well illustrated with case histories the great loss that occurs in the counseling process when conflicts are not attended to by the therapist.To date, however, no study has systematically examined the effects upon the client of experimentally manipulating this method of responding to conflicts. Utilizing the positive relationship between self-exploration and successful outcome as the criterion measure I ) , it is hypothesized that attention to conflict produces greater self-exploration than does classical nondirective reflection and therefore should be the preferred mode of responding. METHODUsing the scales (2 ) developed for assessing levels of the therapeutically facilitative conditions of empathy, regard, genuineness and concreteness, three therapists were selected to represent differential therapist functioning at levels 2, 3, and 4.The patients were three hospitalized male Vietnam veterans, ages 21 to 24: two were paralyzed from the waist down and the third had both legs amputated above the knees. When placed in a helping role themselves and asked to respond to the same taped client stimulus expressions, they demonstrated a 1.7 mean level of functioning across the conditions of empathy, regard, genuineness and concreteness.Each patient saw each therapist for a one-hour taped individual session. Each hour was divided into three 20 minute periods for manipulating equal time exposures to reflection, conflict attention, and withholding both. To help control order effects, each patient was alphabetically assigned to one of the manipulation aequences, and each patient then received eac...
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