Search results for "couple therapy"
showing 10 items of 26 documents
The Relational Mind in Couple Therapy : A Bateson-Inspired View of Human Life as an Embodied Stream
2018
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…
Sympathetic Nervous System Synchrony in Couple Therapy
2016
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-…
Studying Nonverbal Synchrony in Couple Therapy : Observing Implicit Posture and Movement Synchrony
2020
AbstractResearch on nonverbal synchrony (movement coordination) in psychotherapy has recently attracted increased attention. Nonverbal synchrony has been shown to relate to the therapeutic alliance and outcome. However, research on nonverbal synchrony in couple therapy remains scarce. In this study, we examined the therapy process of one couple in detail and created a coding scheme to depict posture and movement synchrony. In this case study, we found that the relationship between nonverbal synchrony and the therapeutic alliance was complex. During the therapy process, the amount of nonverbal synchrony varied, as did the participants’ evaluations of the alliance. In couple therapy nonverbal…
Depression : The differing Narratives of Couples in Couple Therapy
2014
Introduction When a person becomes depressed, partnership can either be a source of strength, advancing recovery, or a source of further suffering, harming the health of both partners (Cordova & Gee, 2001). Also, depression in one spouse can create feelings of helplessness and hopelessness in both spouses (Cordova & Gee). These are some of the reasons why couple therapy has been used with persons diagnosed with depression and their spouses. Yet, according to Denton and Burwell's (2006) experience, which is similar to our own, the spouses of depressed patients often are not part of the treatment in psychiatric outpatient care, and hence feel unsupported, uninformed, isolated, confused, and f…
Impact of repeating somatic cues on the depth of experiencing for withdrawers and pursuers in emotionally focused couple therapy
2021
Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy, an experiential modality, views emotion central to therapeutic change. In this exploratory study, we examined therapists' repetition of somatically focused interventions (therapist verbalizing somatic cues, such as facial expressions) and their impact on clients' emotional experiencing in-session. We also assessed difference for withdrawing versus pursuing partners. The sample included 13 EFT therapists who worked with one couple each for a single session. From transcripts we coded therapists' repetition of somatically focused interventions and clients' depth of experiencing pre-and post-intervention. Multilevel modeling demonstrated that a higher number …
Somatic experience of emotion in emotionally focused couple therapy: Experienced trainer therapists' views and experiences.
2021
In general, arousal of emotions is often felt and expressed as a somatic experience in the body. In Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy (EFT), the deepening of emotional experiencing enables therapeutic change. This research explores the experiences of eight experienced EFT trainer therapists regarding their somatic experiences in their work with couples. Using interpretative phenomenological analysis of transcribed in-depth interviews, this research data yielded three core themes that captured therapists' experiences of using their own and couples' somatic experiences in therapy: (1) the importance and relevance of somatic experiences, (2) therapists' use of their own somatic experiences, a…
Developing Dialogicity in Relational Practices: Reflecting on Experiences from Open Dialogues
2015
The paper analyses open dialogicity in psychotherapy and juxtaposes it with education in order to find common dialogical elements in all relational practices. The core is found in unconditional respect for otherness and generating dialogical space for voices to be heard. In traditional practice, professionals are tempted to plan interventions according to the goals of change informed by their methods and in team work and multi-professional practices they may even do this between themselves, away from the clients. Pre-set categories, plans and goals, however well founded they may seem, hinder listening. Following what others present here-and-now calls for tolerating uncertainty. Insight into…
The Embodied Attunement of Therapists and a Couple within Dialogical Psychotherapy: An Introduction to the Relational Mind Research Project
2015
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…
Alliance Formations in Couple Therapy: A Multimodal and Multimethod Study
2019
AbstractThe authors sought to study underlying processes of alliance formation, a multimethod and multimodal research procedure was developed and applied to a 6-minute episode from one couple thera...
Sympathetic nervous system synchrony: An exploratory study of its relationship with the therapeutic alliance and outcome in couple therapy.
2019
In previous research, we found that sympathetic nervous system synchrony, measured via electrodermal activity (EDA), occurs between participants at the start of couple therapy. The aim now was to test whether this synchrony changes during the therapy process, and how any changes may be related to clients' and therapists' evaluations of the working alliance, and the outcome of therapy. Twelve different couple therapy processes were analyzed (24 clients, plus 10 therapists, working in pairs; hence, 4 persons per session) using EDA concordance indices and questionnaires (Outcome Rating Scale, Session Rating Scale, and Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation-Outcome Measure). EDA synchrony betw…