Abstract

VALDES SANCHEZ, Nelson. Analysis of linguistic style in patient and therapist during therapeutic conversation in change episodes using the Linguistic In-quir y and Word Count (LIWC). Subj. procesos cogn. [online]. 2010, vol.14, n.2, pp.314-332. ISSN 1852-7310.

The growing interest in knowing what happens during the psychotherapeutic process has made researchers focus on the study of verbal and non-verbal patient-therapist interaction, considering a notion of performative language, in which the language is not only understood as a simple reflection of reality, but as constitutive of it. We assumed that during the therapeutic conversation, both patient and therapist, are also "doing something" while they are "saying something" (Reyes et al., 2008; Searle, 1980, 2002). Consequently, the conversation between patient and therapist can set a new reality on which the patient's psychological change is built. There is also support in the last three decades to conclude that the physical and mental health is correlated with the type of words used during the conversation (Chung & Pennebaker, 2007; Graybeal, Sexton & Pennebaker, 2002; Niederhoffer & Pennebaker, 2002; Stirman & Pennebaker, 2001; Slatcher, Vazire & Pennebaker, 2008), which is a reflection of the way their psychological processes are structured. This article includes the results of using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC, Pennebaker, Booth & Francis, 2001) for the analysis of the therapeutic conversation between patient and therapist during change episodes, based on certain linguistic and psychological categories.

Keywords : Change episode; Therapeutic dialogue.

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