posted on 2019-05-14, 09:00authored byMark Burdett, Marco PinoMarco Pino, Nima Moghaddam, Thomas Schroder
The article examines a previously undocumented practice whereby psychotherapy clients support the significance of their experience against the background of how it can otherwise be heard. This practice is the phrase “it sounds X, but Y” (e.g., “which sounds silly now, but was
like important then”). We call this an SXB-contrast. We used conversation analysis to examine 21 instances of this phenomenon, identified in 12 audio-recorded individual psychotherapy
sessions involving 10 clients and 8 therapists. Clients use SXB-contrasts to mark part of their talk as delicate, specifically by voicing an unsympathetic hearing of that talk whilst supporting its experiential significance. Evidence for our claims comes from clients’ use of SXB-contrasts in association with practices of speech delivery (e.g., laughter) and self-repair operations which also establish a part of their talk as
delicate. Therapist responses provide additional supporting evidence. The study contributes to understanding how clients can use meta-talk to convey the meaning of their experiences in
therapy whilst also making available their own emerging awareness of the multiple meanings of those experiences.
History
School
Social Sciences and Humanities
Department
Communication and Media
Published in
Journal of Pragmatics
Volume
148
Pages
12 - 25
Citation
BURDETT, M. ... et al, 2019. “It sounds silly now but it was important then”: supporting the significance of a personal experience in psychotherapy. Journal of Pragmatics, 148, pp.12-25.
This paper was accepted for publication in the journal Journal of Pragmatics and the definitive published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2019.05.007.