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The in-session discourse of unresolved/disorganized psychotherapy patients: An exploratory study of an attachment classification

The Unresolved/disorganized (U/d) attachment classification has generated considerable interest among clinicians. This is in part based on its empirical associations with adult mental health, parenting practices, and treatment outcomes. Despite decades of theorizing, however, we have little empirica...

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Autores principales: Talia, Alessandro, Taubner, Svenja, Miller-Bottome, Madeleine, Muurholm, Signe Dall, Winther, Anna, Frandsen, Frederik Weischer, Harpøth, Tine, Onofri, Antonio, Kongerslev, Mickey T., Simonsen, Sebastian, Poulsen, Stig, Duschinsky, Robbie
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9581270/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36275246
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.985685
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author Talia, Alessandro
Taubner, Svenja
Miller-Bottome, Madeleine
Muurholm, Signe Dall
Winther, Anna
Frandsen, Frederik Weischer
Harpøth, Tine
Onofri, Antonio
Kongerslev, Mickey T.
Simonsen, Sebastian
Poulsen, Stig
Duschinsky, Robbie
author_facet Talia, Alessandro
Taubner, Svenja
Miller-Bottome, Madeleine
Muurholm, Signe Dall
Winther, Anna
Frandsen, Frederik Weischer
Harpøth, Tine
Onofri, Antonio
Kongerslev, Mickey T.
Simonsen, Sebastian
Poulsen, Stig
Duschinsky, Robbie
author_sort Talia, Alessandro
collection PubMed
description The Unresolved/disorganized (U/d) attachment classification has generated considerable interest among clinicians. This is in part based on its empirical associations with adult mental health, parenting practices, and treatment outcomes. Despite decades of theorizing, however, we have little empirical information regarding how patients with a U/d classification assigned by accredited coders actually behave or speak in psychotherapy sessions. Here, we take a step towards bridging this gap by reporting our observations of the psychotherapy session transcripts of 40 outpatients who were independently classified as U/d on the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), the gold standard measure of adult attachment research. These patients were extracted from a larger sample of 181 and compared to others without a U/d classification. In this paper, we discuss two different discourse styles associated with a U/d classification. Some U/d patients did not seem to sufficiently elicit the therapist’s endorsement of what they said. For example, they did not justify their claims with examples or explanations, or did not consider others’ intentions or experiences. Other U/d patients were credible, but left the listener uncertain as to the underlying point of their discourse, for example, by glaringly omitting the consequences of their experiences, or interrupting their narratives mid-way. In the discussion, we place these observations in the context of recent thinking on attachment and epistemic trust, and discuss how this study may form the basis for future quantitative studies of psychotherapy.
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spelling pubmed-95812702022-10-20 The in-session discourse of unresolved/disorganized psychotherapy patients: An exploratory study of an attachment classification Talia, Alessandro Taubner, Svenja Miller-Bottome, Madeleine Muurholm, Signe Dall Winther, Anna Frandsen, Frederik Weischer Harpøth, Tine Onofri, Antonio Kongerslev, Mickey T. Simonsen, Sebastian Poulsen, Stig Duschinsky, Robbie Front Psychol Psychology The Unresolved/disorganized (U/d) attachment classification has generated considerable interest among clinicians. This is in part based on its empirical associations with adult mental health, parenting practices, and treatment outcomes. Despite decades of theorizing, however, we have little empirical information regarding how patients with a U/d classification assigned by accredited coders actually behave or speak in psychotherapy sessions. Here, we take a step towards bridging this gap by reporting our observations of the psychotherapy session transcripts of 40 outpatients who were independently classified as U/d on the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), the gold standard measure of adult attachment research. These patients were extracted from a larger sample of 181 and compared to others without a U/d classification. In this paper, we discuss two different discourse styles associated with a U/d classification. Some U/d patients did not seem to sufficiently elicit the therapist’s endorsement of what they said. For example, they did not justify their claims with examples or explanations, or did not consider others’ intentions or experiences. Other U/d patients were credible, but left the listener uncertain as to the underlying point of their discourse, for example, by glaringly omitting the consequences of their experiences, or interrupting their narratives mid-way. In the discussion, we place these observations in the context of recent thinking on attachment and epistemic trust, and discuss how this study may form the basis for future quantitative studies of psychotherapy. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-10-05 /pmc/articles/PMC9581270/ /pubmed/36275246 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.985685 Text en Copyright © 2022 Talia, Taubner, Miller-Bottome, Muurholm, Winther, Frandsen, Harpøth, Onofri, Kongerslev, Simonsen, Poulsen and Duschinsky. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Talia, Alessandro
Taubner, Svenja
Miller-Bottome, Madeleine
Muurholm, Signe Dall
Winther, Anna
Frandsen, Frederik Weischer
Harpøth, Tine
Onofri, Antonio
Kongerslev, Mickey T.
Simonsen, Sebastian
Poulsen, Stig
Duschinsky, Robbie
The in-session discourse of unresolved/disorganized psychotherapy patients: An exploratory study of an attachment classification
title The in-session discourse of unresolved/disorganized psychotherapy patients: An exploratory study of an attachment classification
title_full The in-session discourse of unresolved/disorganized psychotherapy patients: An exploratory study of an attachment classification
title_fullStr The in-session discourse of unresolved/disorganized psychotherapy patients: An exploratory study of an attachment classification
title_full_unstemmed The in-session discourse of unresolved/disorganized psychotherapy patients: An exploratory study of an attachment classification
title_short The in-session discourse of unresolved/disorganized psychotherapy patients: An exploratory study of an attachment classification
title_sort in-session discourse of unresolved/disorganized psychotherapy patients: an exploratory study of an attachment classification
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9581270/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36275246
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.985685
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