Emotion episodes during psychotherapy sessions among women newly diagnosed with gynecological cancers

Abstract

Objective To describe emotion episodes during early and late psychotherapy sessions among women newly diagnosed with gynecological cancer and to examine whether the total number of emotional episodes during early and later sessions were associated with baseline psychological distress, dispositional emotion expressivity, and patient-rated therapeutic progress. Methods The study utilized data from an ongoing study examining the efficacy of two psychotherapy interventions, a coping and communication intervention (CCI) and a supportive counseling intervention (SC), for women diagnosed with gynecological cancer. Emotion episode coding was completed for the first and sixth psychotherapy session for each patient randomized to receive psychotherapy (N = 173). Patients completed baseline survey measures of psychological distress and dispositional emotional expressivity and post-session ratings of therapeutic progress. Results The average number of emotion episodes was 7.4 in the first session and 5.2 episodes in the sixth session. In both sessions, the majority of emotion episodes contained only negative emotions and focused on a cancer-related topic. A higher1number of emotion episodes in the first session was associated with higher psychological distress reported in the baseline survey (p = .02). A higher number of emotions episodes in the sixth session was associated with a higher number of emotion episodes in the first session (p < .001) and higher patient-rated progress as rated in the sixth session (p = .016). Conclusion The findings highlight the importance of expressed emotions, particularly negative emotions about cancer-related topics, in therapeutic progress during psychotherapy among women diagnosed with gynecological cancer.

Emotional processing during psychotherapy among women newly diagnosed with a gynecological cancer

“…Younger age and higher distress were associated with higher EXP. These findings are consistent with prior work which found that more distressed women tended to express more EEs during sessions, regardless of self-reported levels of emotional expressivity (Myers Virtue et al, 2015). The therapy environment may provide a safe place in which to express distress or negative emotions that women are experiencing.…”

“…EXP was rated from EEs, which were identified using the emotion episode coding system (Greenberg & Korman, 1993; Korman, 1998). More details regarding EE coding are provided by Myers Virtue and colleagues (2015). Using transcripts and accompanying videos, each EE within a session was rated on a 7-point scale in terms of participant awareness of, and exploration and reflection on, their inner experience to achieve self-understanding and problem resolution (Klein et al, 1969).…”

Levels of emotional awareness during psychotherapy among gynecologic cancer patients

“…This study explored levels of emotional awareness during therapy sessions delivered to women who were newly diagnosed with gynecologic cancer. We expanded our prior work (Manne et al, 2017; Myers Virtue et al, 2015) by describing emotional awareness and its correspondence with emotional processing. The study had four key findings.…”

“…Agreement was 90.6%. See prior work (Myers Virtue et al, 2015) for further details about coding. EEs were transcribed for further coding.…”

“…Our two prior studies used data from a previously published randomized clinical trial (RCT) (Manne, et al, 2017). In the first study, we characterized emotion episodes (EEs), which are indicators of emotional expression in psychotherapy (Myers Virtue et al, 2015) and the methods used to code and analyze in-session emotional processing (Greenberg & Korman, 1993; Korman, 1998). An EE is a segment of psychotherapy in which patients express any emotions in response to a situation.…”