“I belong to the days of the dinosaurs”: Extreme case formulation in therapeutic practice.

Abstract

This article written for a special issue on discourse analysis is based on a small data sample of empirical examples, the primary purpose being to explicate an applied discursive psychology (DP) approach to the analysis of extreme case formulations (ECFs) in institutional talk. The interactional function of ECFs such as "never," "always," and "no one" was first highlighted by Pomerantz in 1986 whereby participants could justify or defend their assessments in situations of potential challenge. In 2000 Edwards further demonstrated this device could perform "nonliteral" metaphorical and therefore ostensibly nonaccountable descriptions. This article has sought to further examine the use of nonliteral extremity in hyperbole and ECFs within family therapy interactions as an example of DP analysis. Existing literature indicates that typically where initial assessments are provided, second assessments become immediately conditionally relevant, and to confer agreement are generally produced in an upgraded format (Pomerantz, 1984). The findings of this DP study indicated that when initial assessments contained hyperbole or extreme formulation, the respondent treated them as nonliteral and the second assessments produced tended to be extremity denials plus downgrades. Additionally, within family therapy, the client's use of an ECF did not serve the usual function of guarding against further account-seeking or contradiction, but instead was reformulated by the therapist with an ECF statement downgrade. The implications of these findings are that they may shed further light on the contextual differences of where ECFs are used.