Psychotherapeutic operations and client behavioural commitments.

Abstract

Patients' in-session commitments, decisions, or statements of intention to carry out novel behavioural acts between sessions are valued events for many therapeutic approaches. The value or importance of such events is enunciated in the body of psychotherapy theory as well as demonstrated by the results of research. First, the value of behavioural commitments is evident in many theories of psychotherapy, whether this be explicit or implicit. Secondly, research has demonstrated that in-session behavioural commitments are significantly associated with the carrying out of the selected behavioural acts post-session. Despite the importance of behavioural commitments in many systems of psychotherapy, scholars of psychotherapy have pointed out that serious lacunae exist in the specification of therapeutic operations which may be used in catalyzing the occurrence of behavioural commitments. Consequently, it is proposed that the study of therapeutic methods which catalyze such events would constitute a useful avenue of research. An exhaustive review of psychotherapy process research reveals that few research projects have studied the links between psychotherapeutic operations and behavioural commitments. Moreover, the few existing studies suffer from considerable limitations of scope and essentially have failed to identify links between psychotherapeutic operations and behavioural commitments. In order to address this question with a research focus which is appropriate to the current state of knowledge on the matter, the rationale is provided for a qualitative methodology. The aim of the study is to identify psychotherapeutic operations which catalyze "naturally occurring" instances of behavioural commitments identified in psychotherapy session transcripts. Raw data for the study was obtained through an exhaustive search of published transcripts of sessions from a broad array (any and all varieties) of psychotherapies. Products of the study are relevant to the practitioner as practitioner-ready concrete descriptions of behavioural commitment-catalyzing therapeutic operations, and to the researcher as a collection of propositions for further theorizing and research. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)