Therapists’ intentions and interventions, psychodynamic and cognitive “therapeutic cultures”

ROUSSOS, ANDRES; ETCHEBARNE, IGNACIO; WAIZMANN, VANINA

Berna

Congreso; 42nd Meeting of the Society for Psychotherapy Research; 2011

Society for Psychotherapy Research

Aim: The goal of this presentation is to illustrate the interaction between therapists’ intentions and interventions, characterizing the “therapeutic cultures” of psychodynamic and cognitive orientations. Methods: Trained judges, using the MCPI, a multi level classification of psychotherapeutic interventions, analyzed the transcriptions of the sessions independently. The types of interventions were compared with the therapist’s session intention in 44 clinical sessions belonging to psychoanalytic and cognitive psychotherapeutic treatments, conducted by Argentinean therapists. For the analysis of the interventions and the therapists’ intentions both the patient and the therapist’s speech were taken into account. Results: Preliminary results indicate that specific interventions only represent a small proportion of the therapeutic activity (less than 17%). On the other side, intentions are more theoretically oriented. Their interaction generates a diversity of actions that goes beyond the theoretical framework and characterizes the change process of each therapeutic dyad. Discussion: Both single cases suggest that theoretical frameworks are strongly influenced by cultural aspects. The cultural imprint exceeds theoretical guidelines, leading common aspects of the therapist’s actions.