Muntigl2023a

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Muntigl2023a
BibType ARTICLE
Key Muntigl2023a
Author(s) Peter Muntigl, Lynda Chubak, Lynne Angus
Title Responding to In-the-Moment Distress in Emotion-Focused Therapy
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA
Publisher
Year 2023
Language English
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Month
Journal Research on Language and Social Interaction
Volume 56
Number 1
Pages 1-21
URL Link
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2023.2170663
ISBN
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Institution
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Howpublished
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Abstract

Emotion-focused therapy offers a setting in which clients report on their personal experiences, some of which involve intense moments of distress. This article examines video-recorded interactional sequences of client distress displays and therapist responses. Two main findings extend understanding of embodied actions clients display as both a collection of distress features and as interactional resources therapists draw upon to facilitate therapeutic intervention. First, clients drew from a number of vocal and nonvocal resources that tend to cluster on a continuum of lower or higher intensities of upset displays. Second, we identified three therapist response types that oriented explicitly to clients’ in-the-moment distress: noticings, emotional immediacy questions, and modulating directives. The first two action types draw attention to or topicalize the client’s emotional display; the third type, by contrast, had a regulatory function, either sustaining or abating the intensity of the upset. Data are in North American English.Emotion-focused therapy offers a setting in which clients report on their personal experiences, some of which involve intense moments of distress. This article examines video-recorded interactional sequences of client distress displays and therapist responses. Two main findings extend understanding of embodied actions clients display as both a collection of distress features and as interactional resources therapists draw upon to facilitate therapeutic intervention. First, clients drew from a number of vocal and nonvocal resources that tend to cluster on a continuum of lower or higher intensities of upset displays. Second, we identified three therapist response types that oriented explicitly to clients’ in-the-moment distress: noticings, emotional immediacy questions, and modulating directives. The first two action types draw attention to or topicalize the client’s emotional display; the third type, by contrast, had a regulatory function, either sustaining or abating the intensity of the upset. Data are in North American English.

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