Nonverbal Synchrony of Facial Movements and Expressions Predict Therapeutic Alliance During a Structured Psychotherapeutic Interview

Yokotani, Kenji; Takagi, Gen; Wakashima, Koubun

doi:10.1007/s10919-019-00319-w

Cited by 16 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…Are they right in positing that synchrony is also pivotal for psychotherapeutic processes? It seems that it is, considering the growing volume of articles in this field across the last two decades (e.g., Koole & Tschacher, 2016;Ramseyer & Tschacher, 2006;Reich et al, 2014;Yokotani et al, 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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In and Out of Sync: an Example of Gestalt Therapy

Praszkier

Nowak

2021

Trends in Psychol.

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This article emphasizes the importance of synchronization in changing patients’ dysfunctional patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to functional ones. Furthermore, the concept of synchronization in psychotherapy is delineated herein, showing its feasibility through the free energy principle. Most sync-oriented publications focus on the therapist-patient relationship. In contrast, this article is focusing on the therapeutic process, especially by analyzing how dysfunctional units—both in an individual’s mind, as well as in social relationships—assemble in synchrony and how psychotherapy helps to disassemble and replace them with functional units. As an example, Gestalt psychology and Gestalt psychotherapy are demonstrated through the lenses of synchronization, supported by diverse case studies. Finally, it is concluded that synchronization is opening a gateway to understanding the change dynamics in psychotherapy and, as such, is worth further study.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is growing interest in synchronization in relation to the therapeutic process (Koole & Tschacher, 2016;Ramseyer & Tschacher, 2011;Reich et al, 2014;Tschacher et al, 2014;Yokotani et al, 2020). This is supported by development in the hard-and software monitoring of synchronization in therapy.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

In and Out of Sync: an Example of Gestalt Therapy

Praszkier

Nowak

2021

Trends in Psychol.

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“…In recent years, there has been a growing interest in assessing the alliance in additional and supplementary ways. Among these, researchers have shown great interest in interdisciplinary markers that can assess the alliance, such as physiological synchrony (Kleinbub, 2017), facial expression synchrony (Yokotani et al, 2020), biological markers (Zilcha-Mano, Porat, et al, 2018), and acoustic vocal markers (Imel et al, 2014). One promising direction that has generated growing interest in the domain of nonverbal behavior is the study of nonverbal synchrony (Ramseyer & Tschacher, 2011).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Nonverbal Synchrony and the Alliance in Psychotherapy for Major Depression: Disentangling State-Like and Trait-Like Effects

Cohen

Ramseyer

Tal

et al. 2021

Clinical Psychological Science

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Given the importance of the alliance in psychotherapy, nonverbal synchrony has been suggested as a promising automatic objective marker of its levels and development. Accumulating research presents mixed results regarding the association between alliance and nonverbal synchrony. In the current study, we propose that one of the reasons for the inconsistencies is that previous studies did not disentangle trait-like characteristics from state-like changes occurring throughout treatment. To test this, we had 86 patients enrolled in an ongoing randomized controlled trial, along with their therapists, report their alliance levels after every session. Nonverbal movement synchrony was quantified by motion energy analysis for each of the 16 sessions of treatment. Findings suggest a significant association between nonverbal synchrony and the state-like effect of patient-reported alliance ( p < .0001) but not for the trait-like effect. The results confirm the importance of disentangling the state-like and trait-like components because they may have distinct effects.

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“…Synchronizing with a partner results in higher cooperative motivations and better performance (Valdesolo et al, 2010; Valdesolo & Desteno, 2011), and it increases affiliation, prosocial behavior, and rapport (Miles et al, 2009; Wiltermuth & Heath, 2009). For instance, facial synchrony between clients and therapists during a structured interview positively correlated with judgments of therapeutic alliance (Yokotani et al, 2019). Findings from a recent study demonstrated that parents and children whose resting-state neural networks were more similar also had higher daily emotional synchrony (Lee et al, 2017).…”

Section: How and Why People Synchronizementioning

confidence: 99%

Faces synchronize when communication through spoken language is prevented.

Zhao¹,

Wood²,

Mutlu³

et al. 2023

Emotion

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Cooperating with another person requires communicating intentions and coordinating behavior. People often accomplish these tasks using spoken language, but verbal communication is not always available. Here, we test the hypothesis that, to establish successful cooperative interaction, people compensate for the temporary loss of one means, verbal communication, by amplifying another, namely nonverbal expressive synchrony. Fifty-seven female dyads, half of whom were prevented from using spoken language, completed four cooperative tasks, two of which induced expressions of emotion, while their faces were filmed. The no-language dyads displayed more facial-expressive synchrony, quantified using a novel application of multidimensional dynamic time warping. We find that solutions to coordinating interaction solved by spoken language can be compensated for by synchronizing facial expressions. The findings also point to one social force-the lack of shared language-that might, in the long-term, select for cultures of increased nonverbal expressiveness and synchrony.

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Nonverbal Synchrony of Facial Movements and Expressions Predict Therapeutic Alliance During a Structured Psychotherapeutic Interview

Cited by 16 publications

References 59 publications

In and Out of Sync: an Example of Gestalt Therapy

In and Out of Sync: an Example of Gestalt Therapy

Nonverbal Synchrony and the Alliance in Psychotherapy for Major Depression: Disentangling State-Like and Trait-Like Effects

Faces synchronize when communication through spoken language is prevented.

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