Conversational Errors and Common Ground Activities in Psychotherapy—Insights from Conversation Analysis

Abstract

Many patients leave psychotherapy although in need. What can professional practitioners and researchers assume what happened? Trying to receive a response from these patients we too often are left without an answer.

From turn-by-turn to larger chunks of talk: An exploratory study in psychotherapeutic micro-processes using conversation analysis

“…The answer was no, there is too much difference in concepts and in relational practice. Nevertheless, we could contribute to a CA-approach to empathy (Buchholz et al, 2017;Buchholz 2016). In qualitative research it is not seldom that the data gain dominance over hypotheses; the material leads to interesting questions one had not expected in advance.…”

“…This perception can be shared immediately. When both mutually confirm this step into a common conversation the common ground is prepared for further conversational steps [see the comparison of psychological and linguistic use of common ground (Buchholz, 2016)]. We call them linking activities.…”

“…We analyzed this prototype of a session start extensively (Buchholz, 2016). There is a 4-step procedure in co-producing common ground, as linguists would term it or dyadic state of consciousness, as Tronick termed it:…”

The Building of Empathy: Conceptual “Pillars” and Conversational Practices in Psychotherapy

“…interrupt each other) and the practices of repair, how a topicshift is arranged, the organisation of laughter, how questions are posed and how they are responded (in court, police interrogation and in medical practice), how storytelling changes in dependence from the recipient (recipient design) and a lot of many other things occurring in human conversation; an overview is available [34]. Psychotherapy process research has attracted CA-authors because they are attentive to the "sweet little nothings" during conversation mostly overlooked by more generic "coding and counting" approaches [43][44][45][46][47][48]. The advantage of observing many highly relevant details of voice and prosody [42] or eye movement for coordination [49] is accompanied by the disadvantage that only small numbers of cases can become studied.…”

“…But if this pause lasts more than 3 s and stretches to 27 s [77], it becomes difficult. In an example published elsewhere [43], the therapist felt the need to finish the patient's sentence for him. In this case, the intention to help the patient get over a "stumbling block" resulted in the escalation of a fight for the right to speak.…”