Is how it is said important? The association between quality of therapist intervention and client in-session processing

The main purpose of the present study was to examine the association between the quality of therapist responses and client in-session processing. It was generally predicted that the extent to which an intervention either facilitates or impedes a client's process in therapy is related to how it is articulated or conveyed to the client. A second goal of this research was to begin to validate the York Therapist Process Measure (YTPM; Toukmanian & Armstrong 1998) as an instrument for evaluating the quality of therapists' utterances in terms of their relative degree of Attunement to the client's internal experience, Tentativeness, and capacity to engage the client in Meaning Exploration. Client in-session processing was assessed using the Levels of Perceptual Processing Scale (LCPP; Toukmanian, 1986; 1994).

The findings of this study are consistent with experiential theory and available research, and also indicate that the YTPM is a promising instrument for assessing the quality of therapist interventions. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)