Categories of therapist verbalizations and patient-therapist autonomic response.

Abstract

Hypothesized that a therapist's verbalizations evoke differential gsr amplitudes in his patient which are in accordance with a high to low magnitide hierarchy of confrontation, interpretation, interrogation, and reflection. Gsrs for 12 patients and their therapists in initial interviews, and 1 patient with a personality disorder of a schizoid type and his therapist over a series of 12 interviews were continuously monitored throughout the interviews. Verbatim typescripts were coded to correspond in time with the physiological data. Results indicate a correspondence between selected categories of therapist verbalizations, ordered in terms of stimulus specificity and the amplitude of his patient's autonomic arousal. A similar relationship was found between the therapist's level of autonomic arousal in response to his own categorized verbalizations. (45 ref.)

The Effect of Emotional Distance on Psychophysiologic Concordance and Perceived Empathy Between Patient and Interviewer

“…Early studies in the 1950s suggested that patients and therapists were highly reactive to each other producing physiologic responses that often varied together in "concordance" in some moments and oppositely in "discordance" during other moments throughout a psychotherapy session (Di Mascio, Boyd, Greenblatt, & Solomon, 1955;Lacey, 1959). Subsequent research produced similar results using different measures and study designs (Coleman, Greenblatt, & Solomon, 1956;Di Mascio, Boyd, & Greenblatt, 1957;McCarron & Appel, 1971;Stanek, Hahn, & Mayer, 1973). For example, a study by Robinson et al observed a relationship between concurrent SC fluctuations and perceived empathy in sessions of counselor-client dyads (Robinson, Herman, & Kaplan, 1982) and a more recent study showed increased physiologic linkage in observers of a conflict discussion in married couples (Levenson & Ruef, 1992).…”

State of the Art of Interpersonal Physiology in Psychotherapy: A Systematic Review

“…Except for McCarron and Appel ( 1971 ), none of the studies employed IP as a predictor of a precise theoretical dimension. Five studies did not specify any theoretical interpretation for their data, 2 referred generically to embodiment theory , 2 to system models , 2 to alliance , and most ( n = 6) to empathy , reflecting the general trend of IP literature outside the clinical setting (Palumbo et al, 2016 ).…”

Empathy, Challenge, and Psychophysiological Activation in Therapist–Client Interaction

“…In a study of 43 sessions of a psychotherapy client, Dittes (1957) found that the therapist’s permissiveness and friendliness during the therapy hour decreased the client’s EDA. Furthermore, in a study of initial interviews with 12 clients with their 12 therapists and a series of psychotherapeutic interviews with one client, McCarron and Appel (1971) showed that the therapist’s verbalizations evoke different EDA responses in the client, which are in accordance with a high to low magnitude hierarchy of confrontation , interpretation , interrogation , and reflection . The results also indicated a similar correspondence between the therapist’s own autonomic arousal and the hierarchy of the verbalizations.…”

“…Most existing studies operate with the whole encounters (be they psychotherapy sessions or other interactions). Some take a different direction, focusing on shorter events within larger encounters: participants’ psychophysiological responses during interventions ( McCarron and Appel, 1971 ; Olson and Claiborn, 1990 ), during narratives ( Peräkylä et al, 2015 ), or particular topical units in the session ( Seikkula et al, 2015 ).…”