Therapeutic Ways with Words

Kerckvoorde, Colette van; Ferrara, Kathleen

doi:10.2307/415776

Cited by 18 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…The child responds by claiming insufficient knowledge ( don't know), which is repeated by the psychiatrist in the following turn. This form of repetition has been termed echoing and is claimed to function as emphatic agreement (Ferrara, 1994). The prosodic contours of both utterances do not match, however, possibly suggesting that the therapist's repetition that places stress instead on "Don't" challenges rather than confirms.…”

Section: Extract 1 [Family 27]mentioning

confidence: 99%

Soliciting children’s views on other-perspectives in child mental health assessments

Lester

O’Reilly

Smoliak

et al. 2022

Clin Child Psychol Psychiatry

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Child mental health assessments are complex and involve the analysis of data from multiple sources to inform treatment decisions. Question sequences are central to mental health assessments; however, little research has examined the functions of questions in child mental health interactions, particularly questions that aim to elicit information from children that might be used to inform diagnosis and treatment. In this study, we utilize a large corpus of video-recorded child mental health assessments to examine the use and function of a particular kind of wh-question—circular questions—that is, questions that seek clients’ views on other family members’ feelings, actions, and thoughts. Using conversation analysis, we identified three “broad” functions of circular questions in child mental health assessment. Our findings provide clinicians with clinically relevant examples for using circular questions to more fully involve children in the assessment process and acquire valuable information for diagnosis.

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Section: Extract 1 [Family 27]mentioning

confidence: 99%

Soliciting children’s views on other-perspectives in child mental health assessments

Lester

O’Reilly

Smoliak

et al. 2022

Clin Child Psychol Psychiatry

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“…Other response categories identified in the literature, but about which little has been said, include failure to comprehend or understand the point of a client's metaphor (Ferrara, 1994) and therapists' rejection of a client's metaphor (Tay, 2021). Either of these moves could constitute opportunities for productive therapeutic engagement or moments of rupture.…”

Section: Definitions and Clinical Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Research review of psychotherapists’ use of metaphors.

McMullen¹,

Tay²

2023

Psychotherapy

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Therapists' use of metaphor in psychotherapy is ubiquitous. However, compared to theoretical and clinical claims about the potential effectiveness of using metaphor, research investigations pose challenges and remain relatively sparse. We provide examples of metaphors in sessions and then systematically review the empirical literature. This research suggests that collaborative coelaboration of metaphors with clients is related to positive in-session client outcomes, particularly cognitive engagement. Future research might benefit from a more in-depth focus on the process and impacts of using metaphors. We draw out implications from the research for clinical training and psychotherapy practice. Clinical Impact StatementQuestion: Psychotherapists and their clients often use conventional metaphors (e.g., "You seem down today") and, on occasion, novel metaphors (e.g., "I stab people with my voice") over the course of treatment. Here, we review the sparse evidence for the links between metaphors and outcomes. Findings: Tentative links between collaborative coelaboration of metaphors and client cognitive processes such as problem-setting, reflecting, and connecting have been established. Meaning: Collaboratively working with clients to develop metaphors related to major themes of therapy can be an effective intervention. Next Steps: Additional research that brings together therapists, clients, and researchers for in-depth analyses of metaphor use over the course of psychotherapy is needed.

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“…Starting with a brief memory narrative, patient and analyst gradually complemented the narrative with more detail and context, which helped reworking how the event was connected to the patient's later life and to her anxiety symptoms. Ferrara (1994) highlighted how the listener's reaction may motivate a change in how an event is related to the self. The patient narrated the same work-related event in three consecutive therapy sessions.…”

Section: Change Of the Autobiographical Meaning Of Life Experiencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual differences in revising the life story—Personality and event characteristics influence change in the autobiographical meaning of life events

Peters¹,

Kemper²,

Schmiedek

et al. 2022

Journal of Personality

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ObjectiveRepeated autobiographical narratives have recently received increased attention as measures of the stability of narrative identity. We propose that one way to map change in life narratives is to rate the degree to which the autobiographical meaning of renarrated events changes. We aimed to test the influence of age, traits (openness, extraversion), and event characteristics on how much autobiographical meaning changes.MethodIn waves 3 and 4 of the MainLife study, 123 participants (15–72 years) narrated their lives twice, 4 years apart. Life events that were told both times were rated for change in autobiographical meaning (n = 531). Multilevel models tested individual and event characteristics as predictors.ResultsAutobiographical meaning changed more the more individuals were open to experience, the more recently the events had happened, and the more negative emotions the event narratives contained. It was unrelated to extraversion and to the use of autobiographical arguments. A decrease in change with age was due to older individuals narrating older events.ConclusionOur findings add to understanding how traits and life story are related and underscore the need to further study the role of event characteristics for stability and change in narrative identity.

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Therapeutic Ways with Words

Cited by 18 publications

References 0 publications

Soliciting children’s views on other-perspectives in child mental health assessments

Soliciting children’s views on other-perspectives in child mental health assessments

Research review of psychotherapists’ use of metaphors.

Individual differences in revising the life story—Personality and event characteristics influence change in the autobiographical meaning of life events

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