Therapeutic verbal communication in change episodes: a comparative microanalysis of linguistic basic forms

Abstract

This study examines clients’ and therapists’ verbal communication during psychotherapy, in order to determine its relation to ongoing change and outcome. It replicates previous studies showing the specificity of verbalizations depending on the speaker (client or therapist) and the phase of therapy, adding its relation to change measured at the level of process and final outcome. 7,009 speaking turns of clients and therapists, nested in 139 change episodes, were analysed regarding the use of the five Linguistic Basic Forms included in the Therapeutic Activity Coding System (TACS) through Hierarchical Modelling. Results show that three of these Linguistic Basic Forms — Question, Assertion and Agreement — are related to ongoing change as well as to final outcome.