Therapeutic Interaction Structures and Referential Process: a single case study

According to a constructionist approach for psychotherapy research, the complex phenomena of therapeutic relationship should be analyzed with an integration of process research and micro level analysis of the sessions. The present single-case study was design to show the usefulness of a combination of process analysis with the Jones' Psychotherapy Process Q-Set (PQS; Jones, 1980) and the Italian Weighted Referential Activity Dictionary (IWRAD; Bucci, Maskit & Mariani, 2013). The aims were to assess the interaction structures of therapeutic dyads, as defined by Jone's theory of therapeutic action, and the three phases - Arousal, Symbolizing and Reorganizing -- of the referential process, described by Bucci. The analysis focused on the transcripts of 15 sessions, three for each of the a five years of face-to-face psychodynamic-oriented psychotherapy. All transcripts were rated with PQS items and processed by the Italian Discourse Attributes Analysis Program, obtaining the computerized linguistic measures of the referential process: Positive Affects, Negative Affects, Neutral Affects, Reflection, Disfluency, Referential Activity. We selected the "best" and "worst" sessions, according to level of Referential Activity, and then the most characteristic items of PQS in these two sessions. Finally we correlated the selected PQS items and the level of Referential Activity in all sessions of the process. Preiminary analysis reveal that in the "best" session many PQS items concern the therapeutic relationship; otherwise the "worst" session deals much more with the recent experiences, and self concept. Referential activity in all sessions is correlated with tact of the therapist, focusing on here and now and the expression of feelings of the therapist. The data analysis is in process. All results will be presented.