Questioning questions in psychotherapeutic practice: The dialogical dynamics of change in therapy through clients questioning therapists

The focus of this study is a particular type of questioning in psychotherapy: The unusual, yet recurrent, phenomenon of clients asking questions or making requests to the therapist and the way this alters the dialogical dynamics and therapeutic alliance between the two. Thus, we investigate how these types of question-answer cycles challenge the balance of the dialogical system of therapy including the normally accepted asymmetrical power relation between therapist and client. The analysis is informed by an ecological perspective which views the dialogical collaboration of therapist and client as forming a distributed cognitive system. The study shows how disaffiliation to questioning cycles on one hand stress the dialogical system through changing the language game, yet on the other hand, also entertain a subtle form of cooperativeness. The questioning cycles inform the dyadic system of therapist and client so that precautions can be made in order to secure the therapeutic alliance

Mentalizing Bodies:Explicit Mentalizing Without Words in Psychotherapy

Introduction: Mentalization concerns the human ability to understand the actions of others (and oneself) in terms of intentional mental states. Theoretically, the notion has been described via the poles of automatic, non-verbal implicit mentalization as opposed to conscious and verbal explicit mentalization. In this article, we challenge this standard distinction by examining examples from psychotherapy. We argue that explicit mentalization can also be carried out via embodied non-verbal actions. Method: Four cases of real-life interaction from psychotherapy sessions are analyzed from the qualitative perspective of embodied cognition and multimodal interaction analysis. The analyses are based on video data transformed into transcriptions and anonymized drawings from a larger cognitive ethnography study conducted at a psychiatric hospital in Denmark. Results: The analyses demonstrate the gradual development from predominantly implicit mentalizing to predominantly explicit mentalizing. In the latter part of the examples, the mentalizing activity is initiated by the therapist on an embodied level but in an enlarged and complex manner indicating a higher level of awareness, imagination, and reflection. Thus, the standard assumption of explicit mentalization as contingent on verbal language is challenged, since it is demonstrated how processes of explicit mentalization can take place on an embodied level without the use of words. Conclusion: Based on real-life data, the study demonstrates that online processes of implicit and explicit mentalization are gradual and interwoven with embodied dynamics in real-life interaction. Thus, the analyses establish a window into how mentalization is carried out by psychotherapists through interaction, which testifies to the importance of embodied non-verbal behavior in psychotherapy. Further, informed by the notion of affordance-space, the study points to alternative ways of conceptualizing the intertwined nature of bodies and environment in relation to conveying more complex understandings of other people

The emergence and management of embodied dilemmas in psychotherapeutic interaction: a qualitative study

In this article we take an embodied and interactional perspective on how ethical dilemmas are being managed in situated interaction. Accordingly, we aim at linking ethical principles to real-life clinical practices in order to show how ethical dilemmas are less about abstract decision-making, and more about reasoning constrained by inter-bodily dynamics, affect and adaptive behaviour in situated interaction. We present two real-life cases of ethical dilemma management in a psychotherapeutic setting. We use the innovative method, Cognitive Event Analysis, to investigate the interaction in which the dilemmas emerge. The analytical findings, we claim, pave the way for a more embodied code of ethics, which, in turn, has consequences for the theoretical assumptions that inform the models and guide­lines for action in practice. &nbsp

Metaforicitet: Et kognitivt, økologisk perspektiv på metaforbrug i sproglig interaktion

Med udgangspunkt i de nyeste tendenser inden for kognitionsforskning og kognitiv sprogforskning præsenterer og udfolder denne artikel begrebet metaforicitet. Hovedargumentet er, at begrebet om metaforicitet bør indtænkes i en økologisk begrebsramme for derved at kunne tilbyde et kraftfuldt teoretisk og analytisk alternativ til den kognitive metaforteori (CMT). Metaforicitet er et gradueret fænomen – noget som kan være mere eller mindre aktivt eller til stede. Metaforicitet har dermed ikke en lige så klar afgrænsning som en metafor, men det involverer altid en grad af dobbelt betydning i form af en konkret og en abstraheret merbetydning. Gennem to analyser af sproglig interaktion viser artiklen, hvordan begrebet om metaforicitet flytter fokus fra bagvedliggende skjulte betydningsoverførsler (som hos CMT) til i stedet at nærstudere den dynamiske sproglige og adfærdsmæssige proces, hvorigennem der skabes en betydningsmæssig dobbelthed. Med teoretisk afsæt i ideen om, at kognition er et fænomen, som fremkommer i relationen mellem et individ og dets omverden, påviser artiklen, hvordan metaforicitet kan ses som et medium, hvorigennem deltagere i social interaktion kan koordinere deres opmærksomhed og derved erfare og sammen opleve en betydningsmæssig dobbelthed, som kan åbne for nye måder at forstå et givent fænomen på

Sprog, forståelse og handling. Anmeldelse af Christina Fogtmann: Forståelsens psykologi. Mentalisering i teori og praksis

Anmeldt værk:Anmeldelse af Christina Fogtmann: Forståelsens psykologi. Mentalisering i teori og praksis. Frederiksberg: Samfundslitteratur, 2014 (145 sider)