Psycholinguistic Markers of Therapeutic Rupture Types

Abstract

This study was designed to further understand rupture events that counselors encounter during a counseling session that ultimately impact the quality of the therapeutic alliance. We employed a cross-sectional analysis of a linguistic corpus created from mock counseling transcripts embedded in a website administered by a peer-reviewed expert in the psychology field and three video recorded sessions of Carl Rodgers, Fritz Pearls, and Albert Ellis. The content of the corpuses was analyzed using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software. The results showed a significant difference between she/he words, or third-person singular pronouns, and certainty words when comparing withdrawal and mixed rupture corpuses with a confrontation rupture corpus. In addition, we found a significant differences between positive emotion words and discrepancy words when comparing a rupture-infused psychotherapy corpus to a general psychotherapy corpus. Several implications for counseling and research are provided in response to these findings. Keywords: corpus linguistics, therapeutic alliance, alliance rupture, rupture event, LIWC