0000000001274949
AUTHOR
Anu Karvonen
Soft Prosody and Embodied Attunement in Therapeutic Interaction: A Multimethod Case Study of a Moment of Change
This study focused on a moment of weeping in one psychotherapy case. The overall aim was toexplore the role of “soft prosody” in psychotherapy interaction—that is, the participants’ use ofpauses, a lower volume, slower rhythms, and softer intonation than in the surrounding speech. Amixed-method, micro-analytic perspective was applied to investigate (a) social interaction, includ-ing its verbal and nonverbal elements; (2) the participants’ bodily responses, including autonomicnervous system (ANS) measurements; and (3) the participants’ thoughts and feelings during thetherapy session, as reported in subsequent individual interviews. Soft prosody was observed to be animportant conversational t…
Individualized counselling for active aging: protocol of a single-blinded, randomized controlled trial among older people (the AGNES intervention study)
Background: Active aging has been established as a policy goal for aging societies. We define active aging at the individual level as striving for elements of well-being through activities in relation to a person’s goals, functional capacities and opportunities. Increasing evidence suggests that any meaningful activity is beneficial for different aspects of well-being in older people. The aim of the present randomized controlled trial is to test the feasibility and effectiveness of a one-year community-based intervention on active aging. The AGNES intervention aims at increasing older peoples’ participation in self-selected valued activities. Methods: The proposed study is a two-arm single-…
The Relational Mind in Couple Therapy : A Bateson-Inspired View of Human Life as an Embodied Stream
Research on human intersubjectivity has found that humans participate in a dialogue throughout their life, and that this is manifested not only via language, but also nonverbally, with the entire body. Such an understanding of human life has brought into focus some basic systemic ideas concerning the human relational mind. For Gregory Bateson, the mind works as a system, formed from components that are in continuous interaction with each other. In our Relational Mind research project, we followed twelve couple therapy processes involving two therapists per session, looking at the ways in which the four participants attuned to each other with their bodies, including their autonomic nervous s…
Entrainment and its perturbation in the auditory cortex of the rat : phase and frequency modulations
Tutkimuksen tavoitteena oli luoda oskillatorista tahdistamista rotan kuuloaivokuorella sekä valikoivasti häiritä sitä. Tahdistamista ei ole juuri lainkaan tutkittu aiemmin, joten tutkimuksessa yritettiin löytää uutta tietoa käyttäen ainutlaatuista kokeellista asetelmaa. Viisitoista rottaa nukutettiin uretaanilla ja niiltä mitattiin paikallisia kenttäpotentiaaleja (local field potentials,LFPs) kovakalvon päälle sijoitetun solun ulkopuolisen mikroelektrodin avulla. Neljässä pääkokeessa luotiin 2,5 Hz tahdistamista yhdeksän ärsykkeen äänijonoilla, missä tahdistamisäänen taajuus oli 4000 Hz ja häiritsevän äänen taajuus oli 4500 Hz. Häirintä oli aina kahdeksannessa äänessä, jonka vaihetta ja/tai…
FLEXIBLE AND TENACIOUS GOAL PURSUIT IN RELATION TO OUTDOOR MOBILITY IN OLD AGE
Goal pursuit may affect older people’s outdoor mobility, a correlate of quality of life. This study investigated associations of flexible and tenacious goal pursuit with perceived autonomy in participation outdoors and life-space mobility. Participants were community-dwelling older people aged 79–93 years (n=185). Tenacious goal pursuit (TGP) and flexible goal adjustment (FGA) were self-reported with separate scales (ranges 5–25). Perceived autonomy in participation was assessed with the Impact on Participation and Autonomy ‘outdoors’-subscale (range 0–20), and life-space mobility with the Life-Space Assessment (range 0–120). Two-step cluster analysis was used to create data-driven goal pur…
DO FLEXIBLE AND TENACIOUS GOAL PURSUIT ALLEVIATE THE INFLUENCES OF FUNCTIONAL DECLINE TO ACTIVITY PARTICIPATION?
Assimilative and accommodative coping strategies have hardly been studied in relation to activity participation when facing functional decline. We investigated whether tenacious goal pursuit (TGP) and flexible goal adjustment (FGA) influence the association between physical or cognitive performance, and physical activity or participation in other hobbies. Participants were 78-93-year-old community-dwelling people (n=187). TGP and FGA were self-evaluated with distinct scales (ranges 5–25). Physical performance was assessed with Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB; 0–12) and cognitive performance with Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE; 0–30). Physical activity (0–5) and participation i…
Sympathetic Nervous System Synchrony in Couple Therapy
The aim of this study was to test whether there is statistically significant sympathetic nervous system (SNS) synchrony between participants in couple therapy. To our knowledge, this is the first study to measure psychophysiological synchrony during therapy in a multiactor setting. The study focuses on electrodermal activity (EDA) in the second couple therapy session from 10 different cases (20 clients, 10 therapists working in pairs). The EDA concordance index was used as a measure of SNS synchrony between dyads, and synchrony was found in 85% of all the dyads. Surprisingly, co-therapists exhibited the highest levels of synchrony, whereas couples exhibited the lowest synchrony. The client-…
Sympathetic nervous system synchrony between participants of couple therapy
Synchrony, or the moment-by-moment coordination between people in social situations, has been connected with increased liking and rapport. However, this type of synchrony is an underexplored area with regard to autonomic nervous system activity. The purpose of this research was to study physiological synchrony between participants in couple therapy by focusing on the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), which reflects arousal and emotional reactions. The data comprised 12 couple therapy cases (24 clients, 10 therapists) participating in the Relational Mind in Events of Change in Multiactor Therapeutic Dialogues (2013-2016) research project. Electrodermal activity (EDA) and heart rate were reco…
The Embodied Attunement of Therapists and a Couple within Dialogical Psychotherapy: An Introduction to the Relational Mind Research Project
In dialogical practice, therapists seek to respond to the utterances of clients by including in their own response what the client said. No research so far exists on how, in dialogs, therapists and clients attune themselves to each other with their entire bodies. The research program The Relational Mind is the first to look at dialog in terms of both the outer and the inner dialogs of participants (clients and therapists), observed in parallel with autonomic nervous system (ANS) measurements. In the ANS, the response occurs immediately, even before conscious thought, making it possible to follow how participants in a multiactor dialog synchronize their reactions and attune themselves to eac…
The added value of studying embodied responses in couple therapy research : A case study
This article reports on the added value of embodied responses identified through sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity in couple therapy research. It focuses on moments of change and the timing of therapeutic interventions or therapeutic moves in a couple therapy session. The data for this single‐case study comprise couple therapy process videotapes recorded in a multi‐camera setting, and measurements of participants’ SNS activity. The voluntary participants were a marital couple in their late thirties and two middle‐aged male psychotherapists. The division into topic segments showed how the key issue of seeking help, which was found to comprise three separate components, was repeatedly…
The Significance of Silent Moments in Creating Words for the Not-Yet-Spoken Experiences in Threat of Divorce
In the context of couple therapy involving the threat of divorce, the study examined the significance of silent moments for arriving at words for the not-yet-spoken experiences. It also examined whether interactional and embodied synchrony occurred during such silent moments. A mixed method analysis was conducted, focusing on the therapeutic dialogue, psychophysiological data (the Autonomic Nervous System, ANS), and the participants’ thoughts and feelings during individual Stimulated Recall interviews. Two episodes containing several silent moments were analyzed. The analysis indicated that during the silent moments the participants continued the therapeutic conversations through their enti…
Entrevistas de Recuerdo Estimulado: ¿Cómo la entrevista de investigación puede contribuir a nuevas prácticas terapéuticas? [Stimulated Recall Interviews: How can the research interview contribute to new therapeutic practices?]
The subjective experiences of participants in couple therapy have been explored through Stimulated Recall Interviews (SRIs), in which both clients and therapists come individually to watch video clips of their therapy sessions. We believe SRIs offer a good resource for Practice Oriented Research (POR) by promoting meaningful, flexible interplay between scientific research and clinical practice. Team members have different roles, either as “insiders” or “outsiders” of the therapeutic setting. The potential benefits of these interviews are illustrated by a case study conducted within the Relational Mind research project, in which SRIs helped to promote the emergence of reflections. SRIs, hith…
Affective Arousal During Blaming in Couple Therapy: Combining Analyses of Verbal Discourse and Physiological Responses in Two Case Studies
Blaming one’s partner is common in couple therapy and such moral comment often evokes affective arousal. How people attune to each other as whole embodied beings is a current focus of interest in psychotherapy research. This study contributes to the literature by looking at attunement during critical moments in therapy interaction. Responses to blaming in verbal dialogue and at the level of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) were investigated in two couple therapy cases with a client couple and two therapists. Video-recorded couple therapy sessions were analyzed using discursive psychology and a narrative approach. The use of positioning, a discourse analytic tool, was also studied. ANS res…
The Added Value of Studying Embodied Responses in Couple Therapy Research: A Case Study.
This article reports on the added value of embodied responses identified through sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity in couple therapy research. It focuses on moments of change and the timing of therapeutic interventions or therapeutic moves in a couple therapy session. The data for this single-case study comprise couple therapy process videotapes recorded in a multi-camera setting, and measurements of participants' SNS activity. The voluntary participants were a marital couple in their late thirties and two middle-aged male psychotherapists. The division into topic segments showed how the key issue of seeking help, which was found to comprise three separate components, was repeatedly…
Electrodermal activity in couple therapy for intimate partner violence
The aim of this study was to examine the extent to which intimate partner violence (IPV) is discussed in couple therapy, what the participants say about it and how, and how the participants’ electrodermal activity (EDA) is activated during these discussions. We studied four couples for whom IPV was an issue in dialog with their therapists. We used thematic analysis and examined the differences in EDA (measured as skin conductance responses, SCRs) between the participants. We found that although IPV was discussed relatively little in therapy, when the topic arose the victims took an active part in the discussion. We also found that the main themes were descriptions of IPV, explanations for I…
Active aging – resilience and external support as modifiers of the disablement outcome: AGNES cohort study protocol
Background: Population aging increases the need for knowledge on positive aspects of aging, and contributions of older people to their own wellbeing and that of others. We defined active aging as an individual’s striving for elements of wellbeing with activities as per their goals, abilities and opportunities. This study examines associations of health, health behaviors, health literacy and functional abilities, environmental and social support with active aging and wellbeing. We will develop and validate assessment methods for physical activity and physical resilience suitable for research on older people, and examine their associations with active aging and wellbeing. We will examine coho…