Nonverbal behavior and client state changes during psychotherapy

Abstract

In an intensive videotape analysis of 10 psychotherapy sessions, the body positions and gesticulation patterns of the client were examined in relation to changes in her verbal behavior. Verbal ratings were obtained on the Experiencing Scale (Klein, Mathieu, Gendlin, & Kiesler, 1970), and nonverbal ratings were obtained on the Davis Nonverbal States Scales (Davis, 1986). Results revealed that the position “accessibility” ratings were related significantly to levels of self‐disclosure and involvement as determined by the verbal ratings. The client's gesticulation ratings were not related significantly to the Experiencing Scale ratings, but clinically interesting relationships between gesticulation patterns and verbal content were noted. While body movement long has been recognized as an important source of clinical information, replicable coding of complex patterns of position and gesture has been very difficult to develop. This study presents data that support a promising, replicable method for coding nonverbal behavior in psychotherapy process research.

Human Body Pose Interpretation and Classification for Social Human-Robot Interaction

“…NISA supports the notion that the larger a postural shift is, the more important it is in representing interaction changes [65]. The scale has been effective in proving that the degree to which one person is oriented towards another person is related to his/her degree of psychological openness and rapport, and emotional involvement [70]. The criteria for the coding in Table 2 are based on over 50 one-on-one interactions.…”

“…The body poses that will be identified in our work are derived and modified according to the Davis Nonverbal States Scale (DNSS) [65,70]. DNSS is a coding method designed to analyze body poses displayed by a person in a one-on-one conversation.…”

“…It is based on various clinical and research observations between a client and a therapist with regards to how orientation, distance, and position reflect psychological states of a person engaging in these one-on-one conversations. The scale has been designed to be used in applications where a person's affective states and rapport are to be observed including in conversations, interviews and therapy sessions [70]. Persons in conversation can assume a variety source of information about fluctuations in involvement, rapport, stress, and affective quality and intensity during an interaction [71].…”

“…In particular, we have adapted the position accessibility scale of the Nonverbal Interaction and States Analysis (NISA) of the DNSS to code the body poses of a person in relation to his/her degree of accessibility to the robot utilizing a rule based classifier. NISA has found that a significant relationship between body pose and a person's accessibility exists during interaction [70]. The degree of accessibility has been categorized into 4 distinct levels, ranging from Level I (least accessible) to Level IV (most accessible) and are categorized by the body trunk lean direction (upright and forward) and the orientation patterns such as towards (T), neutral (N) or away (A) from another person, and further divided into 3 sub-levels based on additional T, N or A arm patterns as described in Sect.…”

From philosophy to poetry changes in psychoanalytic discourse

“…This approach does not focus on determining whether a hypothesis can be falsified; "the intention is to learn more; to be surprised; to find out what one does not already suspect, predict or hypothesize" (Mahrer, 1988, p. 697). Other researchers maintain that rather than multiple-subject data collection, an in-depth focus on the nonverbal contextual interaction of the two participants in psychotherapy provides important clues for understanding the beneficial or detrimental aspects of the therapeutic process (Scheflen, 1965;Davis and Hadiks, 1990).…”