Tracking Sequences of Patient-Therapist Dialogues by Coding Responses During Integrative Psychotherapy

The Assimilation of Problematic Experiences Scale (APES) to code the client’s responses and the Process Focused Conversation Analysis (PFCA) to code the therapist’s responses were applied to transcripts of a successful case of integrative psychotherapy of depression.

The method used for the present research was a case study. Dialogues (150 conversations between therapist-client on the basis of meaning) between a therapist and a client in one case with a good outcome were coded and analyzed by two different systems of APES and PFCA.

The data revealed that combining the results of APES and PFCA is a suitable coding system for drawing a client’s change equation. In a pyramid of therapeutic change, questions, skills, and techniques applied by the therapist are located in the base, center, and high level, respectively. Meanwhile, higher APES levels are located at the top of the pyramid. The efficient intervention has to be delineated on the spot and is appropriate for a situation in which the client is at one particular moment. Case improvement has demonstrated that at high levels of APES, level 4 is the critical one.

Setbacks and stagnations are common within psychotherapy and are generally affected by the main topic of the therapeutic conversation.