Changes in Reflective Functioning during Psychoanalytic Psychotherapies.

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Psychotherapy Research
• Attachment Theory

Background:

• Reflective functioning (RF) is crucial in psychotherapy.
• Assessing RF in real-time analytic sessions is challenging.
• Previous research by Josephs et al. (2004) provides a foundation for RF assessment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To replicate and extend previous findings on RF assessment.
• To examine RF fluctuations within analytic sessions.
• To compare session-based RF with Adult Attachment Interview (AAI)-based RF.

Main Methods:

• Applied the RF Scale to analytic sessions.
• Tracked RF changes over 240 hours of psychotherapy.
• Compared session-based RF with AAI-based RF ratings.
• Related RF changes to symptom and attachment classification changes.

Main Results:

• RF demonstrated within-session fluctuations.
• Average session-based RF increased during treatment.
• AAI-based RF showed a slower increase.
• Good correspondence between session-based and AAI-based RF ratings.
• AAI-based RF better predicted symptomatic and attachment changes.

Conclusions:

• Session-based RF may capture therapist-patient interaction dynamics.
• AAI-based RF appears to reflect more stable trait characteristics.
• Both methods offer valuable insights into RF development in psychotherapy.