Verbal expression of emotions in the stage-wise progress of a case of long-term psychodynamic therapy

Abstract

Background: An important focus of current psychotherapy research is to explore how change occurs in the psychotherapeutic processes. There is a lack of studies that track the process of emotional change throughout therapy. Aim: Analysis of a single case is used to examine transformations of emotional functions during the course of psychodynamic long-term therapy. Method: A rating instrument was used to assess three aspects of emotional expression over 120 hours of therapy. Results: The number of verbalised emotions and the variability of the emotional profile increased during the course of the therapy. These developments occured in three distinct phases. The proportion of positive emotions varied across each stage although there was no linear increase across the case as a whole. Modifications of the rating scale were made, in relation to its applicability to the analysis of therapeutic dialogue. Conclusions: The findings of this study suggest that discontinuous transitions can be regarded as reflecting therapeutic progress (proximate outcomes) at an individual emotional level. The rating instrument used in this study has the potential to be widely used in case study research as a means of identifying processes of emotional transition in individual therapy.

Keywords:

• case study
• Clinical Emotions List
• expression of emotion
• psychodynamic long-term therapy
• therapeutic process