Linguistic style, communicative patterns and content analysis. Three approaches to the exploration of subjectivity in conversational processes

Over the last decades psychology, like many other disciplines, has witnessed a paradigm shift, moving from a reductionist to a more complexly oriented epistemology. Many authors recognize that for a proper understanding of human subjectivity there needs to be some concordance between the object of study, the epistemic principles adopted in the investigation, and the theories developed in relation to such object. When human subjectivity is the object of study, we must take into account such complexity and resist simplification (Bocchi & Ceruti, 2007). From this epistemological perspective subjectivity: (a) exists and is knowable only through a subjective point of view; (b) is not and unilaterally modifiable, and (c) is only partially explainable trough complex and recursive models of space, time and causes. It follows that the best way to reach a plausible and ecological knowledge on subjectivity is to adopt a pluralistic point of view, and employ multiple levels of analysis with a variety of research instruments and methodologies. This symposium will focus on one of the main manifestations of subjectivity: the human conversation. Three approaches that focus on different aspects of this complex and ubiquitous phenomenon will be presented, taking into account both therapeutic and non-therapeutic contexts: (1) Bucci’s theory of Referential Process (1997), based on Multiple Code Theory, explains how, through language, we connect symbolic modalities of experience, such as images and words, to sub-symbolic modalities, including all sorts of bodily sensations. The referential process is at the heart of the “talking cure” and allows us to connect not only the patient and analyst’s subjectivities, but also to begin to understand multiple systems in which they encode their experiences. From this perspective, the psychotherapeutic conversation is an embodied, contextual and relational process. We will be presenting two instruments that attempt to capture the referential process just described: the Italian Weighted Reflection and Reorganization List (I-WRRL); and the Referential Process Post Session Scale (RPPS). These two measures detect stylistic qualities of language and can distinguish the three main phases of the referential process – Arousal, Symbolizing and Reflection; (2) The second approach is a dynamic systems approach (Haken, 2010) to psychotherapeutic communication that assumes the continuous and recursive interaction between subsystems comprising communication. From this perspective, therapeutic communication is a dynamic system characterized by pattern formation and transformation at the multiple levels in which the system unfolds: linguistic, paralinguistic, and extralinguistic; as well as within the individual and between individuals. The theoretical foundations of a dynamic systems approach to psychotherapeutic communication will be sketched out, and the empirical literature reviewed; (3) The third approach is a content and social representation analysis perspective (Salès-Wuillemin, 2005). This perspective allows us to map and detect variation, differences and correspondences in the themes of the conversations. These themes when mapped become measures of the intersubjective processes experienced by the speakers within specific local contexts. We will present a study that highlights differences in group cohesion by comparing the conversation of educators and adolescents in different types of residential communities. The comparison of these three different perspectives will highlight the constraints and resources of each specific scope of analysis – linguistic style, communicative patterns and content analysis – and the usefulness of their integration to better understand the complexity of human conversation, both in and outside of therapeutic contexts.