Abstract
Although resistance is a concept that, since Freud, has been regarded as central to the course of the therapeutic relationship, it has been the focus of relatively little empirical research. In this case study, the authors attempt to bring to light the resistance in the course of a psychoanalytically oriented short-term therapy in formal-linguistic terms as well as in the interactive behavior between therapist and patient and to examine the connections between them. The interactive behavior is tracked using the Structural Analysis of Social Behavior. Resistance as manifested in speech is analyzed using several Formal Psycholinguistic Text Analysis (Overbeck, Müller, Jordan, & Grabhorn, 1996) items: speech activity, style of conversation, pauses, acknowledgment tokens, interrupting, overlapping, various personal pronouns, and use of passive voice. Various parameters in both methodological approaches provide evidence of a pronounced resistance behavior at the beginning of therapy. Diminished resistance and the establishment of a working alliance characterize the middle phase of therapy. In the last therapy segment, there are signs of beginning autonomy development. Because of the convergence of the measurements, the results of this study can largely be considered reliable.
Published Version
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