Content-analysis studies of therapeutic interviews: 1954 to 1964.

Abstract

Content analysis traditionally implies a limited set of criteria and procedures, comprising what is here called the classical model. Some studies of therapeutic interviews have deviated from 1 or more of these prescriptions, leading to debate about their methodological status. This paper argues that certain common deviations from the classical model constitute other models which reflect responses to problems posed by the data, the variables under study, and investigator personality characteristics. Rationales for 2 such models are presented, studies representing all 3 models are reviewed, and certain issues common to this body of research are discussed.* Bollard and Auld (1959, pp. 10-12) are the only analysts working in the period covered by this paper, to the writer's knowledge, who made a formal distinction between scoring, contextual, and summarizing units. The scoring unit is the entity that is

A Comparison between Children's and Adults' Ability to Detect Conceptual Information Conveyed through Representational Gestures

“…There have been many studies that have shown that children and adults are good at picking up affective information conveyed through nonverbal behaviors (Buck, 1975;Bugental et al, 1970;Camras et al, 1990;Davitz, 1964;Marsden, 1965;Mehrabian & Wiener, 1967;Solomon & Ali, 1972). Moreover, researchers have argued that detection of this nonverbal affective information actually influences interactions among and between children and adults (for a theoretical account, see Crick & Dodge, 1994).…”

“…Most of the research on this topic has looked at adults' and children's ability to pick up nonverbal affective information from other people. For example, it has long been known that adults are very good at gleaning affective information from such behaviors as facial expression and tone of voice (Davitz, 1964;Marsden, 1965). Moreover, there have been many studies showing that adults use nonverbal affective information to make sense of discrepant messages, that is, messages that convey contrasting verbal and nonverbal information (Buck, 1975;Bugental, Kaswan, & Love, 1970;Mehrabian & Wiener, 1967;Solomon & Ali, 1972).…”

Sequential Analysis of Topics in Psychotherapy Discourse: Single-Case Study

“…While content analysis of psychotherapy discourse has a rich history (see reviews by Marsden, 1965;Russell, 1988) relatively little research has been aimed at identlfying topics by their content nor has the sequence of topics, identified by their contents, been studied as an index of discourse structure. In this paper we made the assumption that discourse structure, as defined by the sequencing of topic content, reflected important aspects of mental organization.…”

Interpersonal Relations: Some Suggestions for Theory Development

“…Although many studies have appeared in the literature that purport to be investigations of these two beliefs, reviewers of this literature, for the most part, have been disappointed with the usefulness of the findings (Calia, 1974; Ford, 1979;Garfield, 1977;Marsden, 1971; Matarazzo, 1979). A common conclusion of these reviewers is that the studies are not testing theory.…”