Patient and therapist introject, interpersonal process, and differential psychotherapy outcome

The Structural Analysis of Social Behavior (SASB; Benjamin, 1974, 1982, 1984) system was used to study the interpersonal process between patient and therapist in the 3rd session of 14 therapeutic dyads. Dyads were grouped into good and poor outcomes cases (n = 7) on the basis of the amount of change in the patients' introject as measured by the INTREX Introject Questionnaire (Benjamin, 1983). Strong support was found for the following hypotheses based on interpersonal theory, linking therapists' introject state, interpersonal process in therapy, and outcome: (a) Poor outcome cases (no introject change) were typified by interpersonal behaviors by the therapist that confirmed a negative patient introject; (b) the number of therapists' statements that were subtly hostile and controlling was highly correlated with the number of self-blaming statements by the patients; (c) therapists with disaffiliative introjects tended to engage in a much higher level of problematic interpersonal processes that have been associated with poor outcome. Implications for future research and therapist training are discussed.