Engaging with difficult topics and emotional experiences in psychotherapy: A study of helpful therapist acts

The purpose of this study was to explore moments during psychotherapy sessions in which clients experience that they have an opportunity to approach and engage with difficult topics and emotional experiences, with the aim of describing therapists' acts that support clients' in-session engagement.

Two treatment sessions of 11 participants were videotaped and immediately followed by an in-depth semi-structured interview, using the interpersonal process recall (IPR) interview method. A follow-up interview was conducted 3 months after the final IPR interview. Participants' accounts were analyzed using thematic analyses.

Five themes of engagement-supportive acts resulted from our analyses: 1. inviting the client by showing acceptance; 2. recognizing the clients' hints and try-out signs; 3. providing information on the process and evaluating clients' expectations; 4. actively helping the clients to notice and stay with difficult experience and 5. showing sensitivity to the client's needs for micropauses. We discuss these themes as acts of recognition.

Clients found it was engagement-supportive when therapists implicitly and explicitly recognized the challenges of being in psychotherapy. This recognition could be achieved through the engagement-supportive acts described in the five themes. Therapists should continually make space for and seek a balance between different engagement-supportive acts.