Content analysis of brief psychotherapy sessions

Abstract

In studying the process of psychotherapy, detailed and reliable methods of describing the components are required. Such a method for content analysis of brief psychotherapy sessions is described. It is comprehensive and has satisfactory inter‐rater reliability. It proved to have predictive validity in that it identified characteristics of the treatment approach, and most of the changes in therapeutic activity during the course of treatment, that had been predicted beforehand. In addition, similar patterns in the use of therapeutic strategies were found for therapists from different professional backgrounds trained in the same treatment approach. This method of analysis is recommended for future studies of content of psychotherapeutic treatments, including investigations of the relationship between content of treatment and outcome.

What do the Carers of People with Schizophrenia Find Helpful and Unhelpful about Psycho-Education?

“…In contrast, in the psychotherapy research literature, there is a long tradition of examining the therapeutic processes that underlie effective interventions in an attempt to address the question of why particular interventions work. One approach that has proved particularly useful has been to explore which aspects of therapy clients report finding helpful and unhelpful (Hawton et al, 1982;Murphy et al, 1984;Elliott, 1985). This methodology has added to our understanding of both cognitive/behavioural and psychodynamic/interpersonal psychotherapies (Llewellyn et al, 1988) and has contributed to the development of models that integrate these different therapeutic approaches (Shapiro et al, 1992).…”

What Do Relatives of People With Schizophrenia Find Helpful About Family Intervention?

“…As a result, the focus of research shifted to emphasize therapeutic process in addition to outcome (Greenburg 1986; Stiles et al 1986). The aim of this research has been to identify the therapeutic processes that account for successful outcomes (e.g., Hawton et al 1982; Murphy et al 1984; Lange and van Woudenberg 1994), and the results of this process research may be particularly applicable to clinical practice (Parry et al 1986).…”

Brief psychotherapy methods in clinical research.

“…In recent years a number of scales have been developed for use in brief psychotherapy process research (e.g., Gomes-Schwartz, 1978; Hill, 1978; Hill et al, 1981; Hoyt, Marmar, Horowitz, & Alvarez, 1981; Suh, O’Malley, & Strupp, in press). Therapist action scales are designed to categorize and rate the behavior of the therapist and have been used to examine whether therapists from different schools of psychotherapy actually talk and behave differently (e.g., Gomes-Schwartz, 1978) and to explore alterations in therapist behavior within single sessions (e.g., Hill, Carter, & O’Farrell, 1983), across entire treatment courses (e.g., Hawton, Reibstein, Fieldsend, & Walley, 1982), and in good and bad sessions (e.g., Hoyt, 1980; Hoyt, Xenakis, Marmar, & Horowitz, 1983). Significant alterations in therapist behaviors have been found to occur both within and across sessions.…”