What about you? Responding to a face-threatening question in psychotherapy

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterScientificpeer-review

Abstract

In psychotherapy, the envisioned change in patient's feelings, thoughts and behaviour often targets their self-experience. This threatens simultaneously the patient's face and the therapeutic relation. We focus on face-threats in transformative question-answer sequences where therapists question the patient's face by shifting the focus of talk on patient's self and in response patients confront the dilemma of having to choose between saving their face or the relation with the therapist. Data come from 47 video recorded psychotherapy sessions conducted in Albanian language. Analysis shows that patients resist the transformation but only after making considerable efforts to save both their face and the therapeutic relation. We conclude that challenging the patient's self-experience is a delicate task in terms of the therapeutic relation.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationRelationships in Organized Helping : Analyzing interaction in psychotherapy, medical encounters, coaching and in social media
EditorsClaudio Scarvaglieri, Eva-Maria Graf, Thomas Spranz-Fogasy
Number of pages26
Place of PublicationAmsterdam
PublisherJohn Benjamins
Publication date2022
Pages79-104
ISBN (Print)978-90-272-1145-3
ISBN (Electronic)978-90-272-5755-0
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022
MoE publication typeA3 Book chapter

Publication series

NamePragmatics and Beyond New Series
PublisherJohn Benjamins
Volume331
ISSN (Print)0922-842X

Fields of Science

  • change
  • face-threat
  • psychotherapy
  • self-experience
  • therapeutic relation
  • transformative sequence
  • 515 Psychology

Cite this