Showing papers by "Leslie S. Greenberg published in 1986"

The psychotherapeutic process: A research handbook.

Abstract: This comprehensive volume represents the first state-of-the-art handbook to appear in the field of process research in over a decade. Updating and expanding upon Kiesler's groundbreaking work (1973), Greenberg and Pinsof present here the most systems for understanding the mechanisms of change in individual, group, and family treatment. Special attention is given to the role of the alliance between therapist and client. Emphasizing the impact that empirical investigations can make on practice, the Handbook presents a wide variety of up-to-date process research systems and consolidates methodological information in the field.

Emotion in Psychotherapy

Abstract: The therapeutic process involves many different types of affective phenomena. No single therapeutic perspective has been able to encompass within its own theoretical framework all the ways in which emotion plays a role in therapeutic change. A comprehensive, constructive theory of emotion helps transcend the differences in the therapeutic schools by viewing emotion as a complex synthesis of expressive motor, schematic, and conceptual information that provides organisms with information about their responses to situations that helps them orient adaptively in the environment. In addition to improved theory, increased precision in the assessment of affective functioning in therapy, as well as greater specification of different emotional change processes and means of facilitating these, will allow the role of emotion in change to be studied more effectively. A number of different change processes involving emotion are discussed, as well as principles of emotionally focused intervention that help access emotion and promote emotional restructuring.

Change process research.

Abstract: Research on change processes is needed to help explain how psychotherapy produces change. To explain processes of change it will be important to measure three types of outcomes—immediate, intermediate, and final—and three levels of process—speech act, episode, and relationship. Emphasis will need to be placed on specifying different types of in-session change episodes and the intermediate outcomes they produce. The assumption that all processes have the same meaning (regardless of context) needs to be dropped, and a context-sensitive process research needs to be developed. Speech acts need to be viewed in the context of the types of episodes in which they occur, and episodes need to be viewed in the context of the type of relationship in which they occur. This approach would result in the use of a battery of process instruments to measure process patterns in context and to relate these to outcome.

Affect in Marital Therapy.

Abstract: Affect has been conceptualized in various ways. These conceptualizations have influenced the manner in which emotion is dealt with in marital therapy. Using a network theory of emotion, the role of the evocation of emotion in emotionally focused marital therapy to create intimacy and facilitate conflict resolution is discussed. Accessing underlying primary emotional responses in partners makes available adaptive action tendencies which promote problem solving and helps change self- and relationship definitions. The role of emotion in creating change in cognitions, motivation and communication patterns in marital therapy is discussed.