This systematic review summarizes articles that examined the effects of the psychotherapist's statements on the outcome of the patient and the therapeutic alliance. The databases PsychINFO, PSYNDEX, PubMed, and PsychARTICLES were searched, and English peer‐reviewed articles were included. Participants should be adult patients with Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders diagnosis who were receiving evidence‐based psychotherapy in an individual setting. Studies with a standardized, observer‐based measurement of the therapist's verbal utterances on the basis of verbatim transcripts of therapy sessions were included. Furthermore, there should be a standardized measurement of the symptom outcome or a measurement of the therapeutic alliance. The 10 included articles showed that supportive and exploratory statements and addressing aspects in the therapeutic relationship were perceived as positive regarding symptom outcome. Negative effects were particularly evident with controlling and challenging statements of the therapist. Regarding the therapeutic alliance, both positive and negative as well as nonsignificant results were obtained. The results of this review suggest that the question of which statements by therapists correlate positively or negatively with the outcome of therapy and the therapeutic alliance cannot be answered unequivocally and must be applied to more individual and specific situations.

Objective: Goals of this single-case study are to assess whether tests according to Control Mastery Theory (CMT) can be reliably identified by trained raters and to examine whether the Psychotherapy Process Q-Sort method can adequately represent the test situation. Method: A single case was analyzed by well-trained psychology graduates on the basis of the Plan Formulation Method. The interrater reliability of the identified tests was examined. In addition, the tests were classified according to the Psychotherapy Process Q-Sort. Results: 70 test situations were identified with acceptable overall interrater reliability and slightly better values for single categories. The Q-Sort analysis indicated 34 items that were assigned more than 5 times to 3 tests. Overall, a combination of more than five Q-Sort items represented one test situation. Conclusions: These findings demonstrate that even welltrained graduates can identify tests. Indeed, the Psychotherapy Process Q-Sort does not suffice to adequately represent the test concept according to CMT.

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Objective: Due to the coronavirus pandemic and crisis, psychotherapists around the world were forced to switch to video-or tele-based treatments overnight. To date, only a few studies on the effectiveness of video-based psychodynamic psychotherapy via the Internet exist. Therefore, the goal of the present study was to examine symptom improvement, therapeutic relationship, nonverbal synchrony processes, and intersession processes within a systematic single case design and compare face-to-face to video-based approaches in long-term psychodynamic-oriented psychotherapy.Methods: We examined 85 sessions of a client with major depression whose psychodynamic psychotherapy changed from a face-to-face setting to a video-based setting. Video recordings were analyzed using motion energy analysis, and nonverbal synchrony was computed using a surrogate synchrony approach. Time series analyses were performed to analyze changes in symptom severity, therapeutic relationship, and intersession processes. Results:The results showed that symptom severity improved descriptively, but not significantly, across the

According to control mastery theory, patients in psychotherapy try to master their problems by disconfirming their pathogenic beliefs. This can be done by testing the therapist. So far, there is hardly any evidence on what concrete interventions or statements of therapists are specifically helpful in passing those tests. In our study, we analyzed the verbal utterances of therapists in test situations to determine whether there is a difference in statements used for passing or failing tests. A total of 168 session transcripts of 21 patients were selected from a total of six therapists, two each in psychoanalytic therapy, psychodynamic therapy, and cognitive behavioral therapy. Test situations were identified, and therapist responses were coded using the helping skills system. There were significant differences in the therapists' reactions to test situations. In particular, closed questions, approval, interpretation, and reflection of the patients' feelings by therapists were associated with a high probability of passing tests. These findings can especially support therapists-intraining to obtain an orientation on how to deal with their patients' test situations that may be perceived as challenging and are important for therapy success while respecting the individuality of their patients. Public Significance StatementThis study shows that therapists react differently to relational tests of patients. Exploratory statements, such as closed questions, approval, interpretation, and reflection of feelings were shown to be effective. These findings can especially support therapists-in-training to obtain an orientation on how to deal with test situations of patients.