Responding to self-criticism in psychotherapy

We explored the interactive process in which therapists respond to client self-critical positions.

Drawing from the resources of conversation analysis (CA), we examined a corpus of in-session self-critical sequences of talk occurring in different kinds of treatments: Client Centered Therapy, (CCT), Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT), Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (PP) and in different cultural contexts.

It was found that client self-critical talk performed various functions pertaining to diminished control, accountability (e.g., failed obligations leading to self-blame) and disparaging evaluations of self (contempt or disgust). Further, therapists were found to respond in ways that targeted the client's report of having diminished control or of being accountable for their negative attributes by providing a more optimistic reading of the client's experience, one that is more open to positive outcomes and the possibility of change. Our sequential analysis not only shows how clients may resist these optimistic readings, but also how therapists work towards successfully achieving moments of re-affiliation.

We anticipate that the fine-grained sequential analysis of therapy interaction can provide therapists with a more detailed understanding of the options and challenges therapists face when working with clinical challenges of clients' self-critical positions.