Conversation Analytic Study Of Psychotherapeutic Talk

Psychotherapy has become a rising professional practice in China in the past decades,while Chinese psychotherapeutic talk whereby the “talking cure”(Per?kyl? et al.,2008)is achieved is yet to be systematically explored from an interactional perspective in the arena of discourse analysis.Chiefly applying the approach of conversation analysis,this dissertation provides a holistic and empirical investigation into the organization of the social interaction in this institutional setting by reference to the specific momentary social relations established and the therapeutic actions implemented through turns-at-talk.The present conversation analytic study is based on the naturally-occurring data collected from the recordings of the therapist-client interaction in twenty seven psychotherapeutic dyad sessions conducted in mandarin Chinese.Drawing on the analytical apparatuses provided by conversation analysis including sequence organization,turn design,turn-taking system,etc.,the primary concerns and major findings of the dissertation reside in the following dimensions.Firstly,this dissertation examines the overall structural organization of the psychotherapeutic talk and proposes three main phases that constitute a thorough therapeutic process,namely,problem presentation,problem interpretation and problem intervention.Both the therapists and clients are found to orient to the inception of a certain phase and the transition from one phase to another.Secondly,in an attempt to understand what kinds of momentary social relations are established to accomplish particular therapeutic tasks in different phases of therapist-client interaction,this dissertation enriches and develops Stevanovic and Per?kyl?'s(2014)preliminary proposal of the framework composed of emotion,epistemics and deontics as the three orders of human interaction in which momentary social relations are anchored.Rather than simply applying this rudimentary framework,this dissertation,based on the observations of the data,discovers that in institutional interaction,particularly in psychotherapeutic talk,emotion,epistemics and deontics are not treated as equal orders around which momentary social relations are organized,but are sequentially organized in order and mapped onto the three phases throughout a complete psychotherapeutic process.Specifically,the emotional order is most salient in the phase of problem presentation.The epistemic order stands out among the rest in the phase of problem interpretation.And the deontic order is predominantly involved in the last phase,i.e.problem intervention.Thirdly,given the specific momentary social relations in different phases,the dissertation identifies the main interactional project in each phase.The therapists orient to establishing emotional affiliation in problem presentation,to displaying epistemic authority in problem interpretation and deontic authority in problem intervention.Fourthly,these interactional projects are crucial to the realization of therapeutic work that may lead to a desirable therapeutic outcome,and are rendered via two ways,namely,sequence organization and recurrent conversational practices.Through investigating these two aspects,the dissertation offers a systematic and exhaustive description and analysis of the sequential patterns and conversational resources mainly deployed by the therapists and occasionally,by the clients.Finally,the issue of interactional asymmetry is addressed in the dissertation.Instead of presuming that there exists only one single dimension of the asymmetry between the professional and lay parties pre-determined by the institutional nature of psychotherapy,an in-depth examination of the current data suggests that such a static view does not apply to psychotherapeutic interaction.This dissertation probes into the dynamic nature of psychotherapy by expounding the negotiable and Janus-faced asymmetries underlying each momentary social relation in its corresponding phase,especially the emotional and epistemic asymmetries.The present dissertation provides insights into psychotherapeutic inquiry on both a macro and a micro-level.It offers a holistic account of therapeutic talk by virtue of constructing a tripartite perspective of emotion,epistemics and deontics as well as a conceptual framework arising from the abovementioned observations.Meanwhile,by virtue of a conversation analytic inquiry,the dissertation attends to the microanalysis of the conversational resources utilized in therapist-client interaction.It makes explicit a typical therapeutic process that involves the interplays of overall structure,momentary social relations,sequence organization and conversational practices insofar as they contribute to a desirable therapeutic outcome.The theoretical significance of this dissertation lies in the revelation of the endogenous power in talk-in-interaction built on turns-at-talk which makes the talking cure possible.Since the study is one of the few attempts in CA research body to propose an overall structure and might even be the first attempt to uncover the sequential organization of social relations in psychotherapy,it may lead in more significant inquiries into this line of research.The dissertation also contributes to the professional practice in psychotherapy via an extensive exposition of the conversational resources that is expected to facilitate professionalism in therapy and counseling.