Thematic segmentation of psychotherapy transcripts for convergent analyses.

Abstract

The intention of conducting collaborative multidisciplinary research on records of psychotherapy imposes many potentially incompatible constraints. At the core lies the challenge of segmenting materials into units suitable for very different research methods while nevertheless ensuring comparison and convergence of results across a diverse array of measures. We examine issues of segmentation, present a coordinated system based on segmentation of psychotherapy transcripts by communicated meaning, and describe applications of the approach. Introduction: The Problem of Segmentation and Multunethod AnalysesCollaborative, multimethod research is needed to address many research questions (Brewer & Hunter, 1989;Murray, 1963) and is an important trend in psychotherapy research (Russell, 1987). But measures of relevant constructs are usually applied to different units (Kiesler, 1973). Even though it may be generally agreed that thematic content-what is communicated in therapy-is centrally important, coordinating various methods and measures has always been a sticky problem.

Shame, Humiliation, and Childhood Sexual Abuse: Distinct Contributions and Emotional Coherence

“…The narrative interviews used in the current study were previously transcribed in an earlier study from audiotaped recordings using standards developed for psychotherapy sessions (Mergenthaler & Stinson, 1992). Judges segmented each transcript into NUs based on their intuitive understanding of the natural boundaries of a complete thought or idea (Butterworth, 1975;Stinson, Milbrath, Reidbord, & Bucci, 1994). In contrast to segmentation procedures suggested for psychotherapy transcripts (Stinson et al, 1994), interruptions by the interviewer were not used to define NU boundaries unless they altered the content of the participant's disclosure.…”

“…Judges segmented each transcript into NUs based on their intuitive understanding of the natural boundaries of a complete thought or idea (Butterworth, 1975;Stinson, Milbrath, Reidbord, & Bucci, 1994). In contrast to segmentation procedures suggested for psychotherapy transcripts (Stinson et al, 1994), interruptions by the interviewer were not used to define NU boundaries unless they altered the content of the participant's disclosure. Interrater reliability for the segmentation was calculated by summing the number of NU markers on which judges agreed, multiplying this sum by two, and dividing by the total number of NU markers coded.…”

The Clinical Use of Photography: A Single Case, Multimethod Study of the Therapeutic Process

“…According to the Manual for the evaluation of the RA (for the Italian version see De Coro & Caviglia, 2000), the presence of three judges allows to achieve a good inter-rater reliability in the segmentation of the text into IUs. Satisfactory reliability can be achieved by selecting segment boundaries on the basis of agreement between at least two of the three judges, and this IU selection criterion was adopted in the present study; k values were not calculated: according to Stinson, Milbrath, Reidbord, & Bucci (1994), "a kappa value cannot be derived as it is impossible to calculate Pexpected when there is no reliable value for the number of units being compared" (p. 44); the true number of IUs cannot be known a priori, so that an estimate must be used.…”

The everyday concerns of mothers of young children and the motivation to seek ongoing parenting support from experts

“…The responses to these prompts were transcribed and segmented into 'idea units' using procedures outlined by Stinson, Milbrath, Reidboard, and Bucci (1994), who originally used this method with the transcripts of psychotherapy sessions. An idea unit is a form of segmenting text where judges divide a text by their intuitive understanding of where an idea begins and ends.…”