A Study on Therapist-Client Relationships in Therapy Session : from a Viewpoint of Therapeutic Discourse Analysis

2001 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

• Project/Area Number: 12610140
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: 教育・社会系心理学
• Research Institution: Yamanashi College of Nursing
• Principal Investigator: KIKUNO Monju Yamanashi College of Nursing, Faculty of Nursing, Professor (70191070)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): ANDO Kiyoshi Kagoshima University, Faculty of Education, Associate Professor (20151201) ; NAKAJIMA Sachiko Kagoshima University, Faculty of Education, Associate Professor (80223147) ; TANIZAKI Kazuyo Kagoshima Immaculate Heart University, School of International Studies, Associate Professor (30269154)
• Project Period (FY): 2000 – 2001
• Keywords: Therapeutic Discourse Analysis / Therapist-Client relationship / Discourse analysis

Research Abstract

The aim of this study is to analyze verbal and nonverbal acts between a therapist and a client in a psychothe rapy session, and to clarify the properties of psychotherapy. Subjects consisted of one experienced therapist, one inexperienced therapist, and one non-experienced female, who is considering being trained as a therapist. Secondly, three thirty-minute experimental sessions were held involving the three therapists and three female college students as clients. The interviews were both video and audio taped, and then transcribed.
A therapist should encourage his/her client to talk in a therapy session. While it was found in this experiment that the three therapists allocate their client turns and let them maintain their turns by showing supportive behavior, differences in client discourse management was also found between the three therapists. The experienced therapist waited until her client started to talk, and then helped her proceed with their talking by back-channel behavior and nodding. On the other hand, the inexperienced therapist waited somewhat for her client to begin talking, but she then attempted to elicit her client's utterances by questioning her. Finally in the case of the non-experienced "therapist", her linguistic behavior is similar to that in everyday conversation, and she can be described as being the dominant speaker. While the client was allocated turns, the "therapist" held th e initiative in allocating those turns.
Such attitudes of the inexperienced and the non-experienced therapists could be attributed to their stereotypi cal thinking about counseling. It is suggested that they regard counseling as consultation, which provides the clients with clues to help solve their problems.