Muntigl2023a
Muntigl2023a | |
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BibType | ARTICLE |
Key | Muntigl2023a |
Author(s) | Peter Muntigl, Lynda Chubak, Lynne Angus |
Title | Responding to In-the-Moment Distress in Emotion-Focused Therapy |
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Tag(s) | EMCA |
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Year | 2023 |
Language | English |
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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 |
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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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