Whereas cognitive-behavioral (CB) therapy sessions aim to be instructive and encouraging, psychodynamic-interpersonal (PI) sessions aim to be exploratory and may be emotionally painful. Raters rated degree of pleasure and arousal in each sentence of client speech in CB and PI sessions (N ϭ 18) that therapists had identified as particularly helpful. Client emotion in PI sessions was less pleasant, on average, than client emotion in CB sessions; emotion was most negative in the middle of the PI sessions. Within sessions, arousal tended to follow a U-shaped course for CB clients but an inverted U-shaped course for PI clients. The results support suggestions that these two therapeutic approaches operate by different emotional mechanisms.

This exploratory study has shed greater light on the effects of shiatsu. The sample findings provide a user and practitioner grounded base for the design of appropriate questions for exploration in a larger and more generalizable study of the effects of shiatsu.

Seven counsellors were interviewed about their experiences of learning and applying a new approach to therapy: the psychodynamic‐interpersonal model. These interviews were analysed using grounded theory — a qualitative approach. Under the core category of ‘changing counselling practice: applying the PI model of therapy’, the material was organised into 10 major categories: difficult feelings; new awareness; therapeutic identity; identifying reasons for choosing how to work; experiencing difficulties in adherence; attributing causes of difficulties; ways through the difficulties; understanding how change in practice occurs; changing interventions; and specific other inputs. Examples from the interviews are used to cast light on the difficulties experienced by counsellors in the process of changing their practice.