The Impact of Mental Imagery Instructions on Patients' and Therapists' Positive Affect and Strength-Based Behaviours Within Psychotherapy Sessions: A Randomized Controlled Process Study.

Autor: Schürmann-Vengels J; School of Psychology and Psychotherapy, Witten/Herdecke University, Witten, Germany.; Department of Psychology, University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany., Flückiger C; Department of Psychology, University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany., Reyer E; School of Psychology and Psychotherapy, Witten/Herdecke University, Witten, Germany., Odyniec P; School of Psychology and Psychotherapy, Witten/Herdecke University, Witten, Germany.; Department of Psychology, University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany., Willutzki U; School of Psychology and Psychotherapy, Witten/Herdecke University, Witten, Germany.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Clinical psychology & psychotherapy [Clin Psychol Psychother] 2024 Jul-Aug; Vol. 31 (4), pp. e3036.
DOI: 10.1002/cpp.3036
Abstrakt: Objective: Increased attention has recently been paid to the well-being and flourishing of patients in psychotherapy. This study investigated the occurrence of positive affect (PA) and strength-based behaviours within psychotherapy sessions contrasting positive versus neutral imagery instructions.
Methods: This is a secondary analysis of a randomized controlled trial. Seventy-eight sessions of cognitive behavioural therapy involving 26 patients (69.23% female; M age  = 40.31) treated by 13 therapists were selected. PA and strength-based behaviours of patients and therapists were coded on a minute-by-minute basis with the Resource-Oriented Microprocess Analysis. Each session started with a brief mental imagery instruction. Data were analysed using multilevel modelling.
Results: Mild levels of PA were very common, whereas stronger expressions were occasional, especially at the beginning and end of sessions. Strength-based behaviours were employed in one-fifth of the videos analysed. Therapists in the positive imagery instruction showed more strength-based behaviours in the beginning phase of sessions, p < 0.05. The two imagery instructions significantly differed in the session trajectories of PA, p < 0.05. A quadratic trend with higher initial values and a sharper decline in PA were found in the positive instruction, whereas the neutral instruction showed a flatter trend.
Conclusion: Patients and therapists experience PA and discuss strengths in psychotherapy sessions despite patients' distress. The positive imagery instructions potentially induced a positive focus at baseline for therapists but had a negligible effect on the subsequent session progression.
Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT03767101 (registered December 6, 2018).
(© 2024 The Author(s). Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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