Diagnostic formulations in psychotherapy

By Charles Antaki, R. Barnes, I. Leudar. 2005

200 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Conversation analysts have noted that, in psychotherapy, formulations of the client's talk can be a vehicle for offering a psychological interpretation of the client's circumstances. But we notice that not all formulations in psychotherapy offer interpretations. We offer an analysis of formulations (both of the gist of the client's words and of their implications) that are diagnostic: that is, used by the professional to sharpen, clarify or refine the client's account and make it better able to provide what the professional needs to know about the client's history and symptoms. In doing so, these formulations also have the effect of shepherding the client's account towards subsequent therapeutic interpretation. In a coda, we notice that sometimes the formulations are designed discreetly. We examine one such discreet formulation in detail, and show how its very ambiguity can lead to its failure as a diagnostic probe.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Language and Linguistics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0c9fa8660620ed595c40e27f688f5f6810863fb9

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In Clinical Psychology

In Language and Linguistics

Citations in the corpus

Recognition and Interpretation: Responding to Emotional Experience in Psychotherapy (2010, unknown): “Conversation analysts have investigated actions such as questions and answers ( MacMartin, 2008 ; Perakyla, 1995 ), formulations ( Antaki, 2008 ; Antaki, Barnes, & Leudar, 2005 ; Buttny, 2004 , chs.”
‘Articulating the unsaid’ via and-prefaced formulations of others’ talk (2010, methodology): “…2005; Hutchby, 2005; Raymond, 2004), framing the formulation with an explicit reference to the recipient’s words, as in ‘what you’re saying is’ or ‘you say X’ (Antaki et al., 2005; Steensig and Larsen, 2008), or simply making an assertion about something the addressee said or alluded to…”
Marking understanding versus receipting information in talk: Achso. and ach in German interaction (2010, background): “Additionally, candidate understandings have been studied in particular in the context of managing knowledge, informings and understandings (Antaki et al., 2005; Beach and Dixson, 2001; Heritage and Watson, 1979; Lehtinen, 2005; Moore and Maynard, 2002).”
A Comparative Conversation Analytic Study of Formulations in Psychoanalysis and Cognitive Psychotherapy (2013, background): “…of formulations in psychotherapy suggest that their key task is to transform the client’s talk: to reformulate the client’s descriptions in terms that render them psychological issues suitable for therapeutic work (Antaki, 2008; Antaki et al., 2005; Davis, 1986; Hak & De Boer, 1996; Hutchby, 2005).”