Anssi Peräkylä

Conversation Analysis and the Professional Stocks of Interactional Knowledge

Some institutional settings, such as therapeutic or counselling settings, involve normative models, theories or quasi-theories concerning professional–client interaction. These models and theories can be found in professional texts, in training manuals and in written and spoken instructions delivered in the context of professional training or supervision. In this article, we would like to call these models and theories ‘stocks of interactional knowledge’ (SIKs). Our aim is to explore the possibility of a dialogue between conversation analysis and such SIKs. Based on research on medical and counselling settings, we discuss the different relationships that CA and such interactional theories may have. We propose that CA findings may (i) falsify or correctassumptions that are part of an SIK; it may (ii) provide a more detailed pictureof practices that are described in an SIK. (iii) CA may also add a new dimensionto the understanding of practices described by an SIK, or (iv) providethe description of practices, not provided by a very abstract or general SIK.

MAKING LINKS IN PSYCHOANALYTIC INTERPRETATIONS: A CONVERSATION ANALYTICAL PERSPECTIVE

Twenty-seven psychoanalytic sessions were tape-recorded and transcribed with the aim of describing key aspects of the psychoanalytic technique as they appear in these recordings. The method of the study, which included 2 experienced analysts and their 3 patients, was conversation analysis. This study focuses on interpretations that make links between different domains of the patients experience (childhood, current everyday life, and the analyst–analysand relationship). The analyst is actively working to create a match between the different domains of experience by shaping the description of the patients experience to display the “sameness” of the connected experiences. There are 2 loci for the analysts work to create the match: One is the lexical choice within the interpretative statements, and the other is the sequence structure in the discussion that precedes the interpretations. The results are discussed in the light of Spences concept of linguistic appeal of interpretations.

Facial and Verbal Expressions in Assessing Stories and Topics

This article examines the intertwining of facial and verbal expressions in assessing stories and topics. The main focus is on the facial expressions of the speaker of a story or telling that occur before their verbal evaluation. It is shown how speakers and recipients arrange face and talk in different configurations in order to display their stance toward what is being told. A key finding is that facial expression can stretch the temporal boundaries of an action. This temporal flexibility of the face enforces its role as a subtle device for securing shared understanding and affiliation. The data consist of 10 telling sequences that are closed up with assessments, drawn from Finnish two-party everyday conversations.

Analysing psychotherapy in practice

The Oxford English Dictionary defines modern psychotherapy as “the treatment of disorders of the mind or personality by psychological or psychophysiological methods.” Administering electroconvulsive shocks would, however, hardly count as psychotherapy; the common assumption is it that, in psychotherapies, the means of healing is talk. Not all talk is therapeutic, and the history of psychotherapy involves not just formulating new psychological theories but evolving new and distinct ways of talking with clients. This book is an effort to describe and to understand these distinct ways of talking. Many psychoanalytic historiographies locate the invention of psychotherapy in Breuer’s work with a patient they called Anna O. (described in Freud and Breuer’s Studies on Hysteria, 1991/1895) at the end of nineteenth century. Anna O. found that narrating her worries and fantasies helped to relieve her symptoms and she coined the phrase “the talking cure” to describe what she was doing. Freud used her case retrospectively to document the invention of psychoanalysis, which became the first form of psychotherapy. Rather soon, however, there emerged other ways of doing and thinking about “the talking cure,” and at least since 1950s, the field of psychotherapy has been characterized by the multitude of (often rival) approaches. In psychotherapy with individual patients, client-centred psychotherapy gained influence in the 1950s (see e.g. Rogers, 1951), and cognitive-behavioural therapies have been increasingly popular since the 1970s (see e.g. Dryden, 2007). Alongside psychotherapies with individuals, group and family therapies based on psychoanalytic, system-theoretical, and later on social-constructionist ideas have been influential since the 1950s and 1960s. Each school of individual, group, or family therapy is characterized by specific theoretical ideas about mind, behaviour, and social relations, and about the ways in which these may change. While, for example, psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapies emphasize the importance of unconscious

Recognition and Interpretation: Responding to Emotional Experience in Psychotherapy

Based on conversation analysis (CA) of audio-recorded therapy sessions, the article explicates practices of responding to the patients emotional experience in cognitive-constructivist psychotherapy. First, the article describes two types of therapists actions after the patients descriptions of an emotional experience: recognition and interpretation. In recognition, the therapist displays that she understands the patients experience and sees it as real and valid. In interpretation, the therapist points at something that can be heard as implicit in what the patient expressed. Second, the article shows that these two actions are combined in specific ways in the therapists turns at talk. It is suggested that recognition (emotional responsiveness) is a prerequisite of the therapists more interpretive actions that imply access to the patients experience. The empirical findings are discussed in relation to sociological studies on management of emotions in institutions and psychotherapeutic debates on cognitive and emotional aspects of therapeutic processes.

Three orders in the organization of human action: On the interface between knowledge, power, and emotion in interaction and social relations

All social life is based on peoples ability to recognize what others are doing. Recently, the mechanisms underlying this human ability have become the focus of a growing multidisciplinary interest. This article contributes to this line of research by considering how peoples orientations to who they are to each other are built-in in the organization action. We outline a unifying theoretical framework in which the basic facets of human social relations are seen as being anchored in three orders—epistemic order, deontic order, and emotional order—each of which, we argue, also pertains to action recognition. This framework allows us to account for common ambiguities in action recognition and to describe relationship negotiations involving a complex interface between knowledge, power, and emotion. (Action recognition, social relations, conversation analysis, status, stance, epistemic rights, deontic rights, emotion) *

Influence of Turn-Taking in a Two-Person Conversation on the Gaze of a Viewer

In natural conversation, the minimal gaps and overlaps of the turns at talk indicate an accurate regulation of the timings of the turn-taking system. Here we studied how the turn-taking affects the gaze of a non-involved viewer of a two-person conversation. The subjects were presented with a video of a conversation while their eye gaze was tracked with an infrared camera. As a control, the video was presented without sound and the sound with still image of the speakers. Turns at talk directed the gaze behaviour of the viewers; the gaze followed, rather than predicted, the speakership change around the turn transition. Both visual and auditory cues presented alone also induced gaze shifts towards the speaking person, although significantly less and later than when the cues of both modalities were available. These results show that the organization of turn-taking has a strong influence on the gaze patterns of even non-involved viewers of the conversation, and that visual and auditory cues are in part redundant in guiding the viewers’ gaze.

Discussing safer sex in HIV counselling: assessing three communication formats

Although it is acknowledged that counselling can be an important factor in behaviour change, we lack information on how HIV counselling works in practice. Research is reported based on transcriptions of audio-tapes of counselling drawn from seven hospital centres in England and the USA. It is shown that communication occurs in the context of three different formats. Certain formats and conversational strategies used by counsellors produce far greater patient participation. Such participation may hold out the prospect of greater behavioural change than simply listening to information and advice.

A Comparative Conversation Analytic Study of Formulations in Psychoanalysis and Cognitive Psychotherapy

The uses of formulation in cognitive psychotherapy and psychoanalysis were compared, by means of conversation analysis, using 53 audio-recorded sessions as data. Two formulation types were found in both approaches: highlighting formulations, which recycle the clients descriptions and recognize therapeutically dense material, and rephrasing formulations, which offer the therapists version of the clients description and focus on subjective experiences. These formulations may be interactional bearers of common factors in psychotherapy. Two other formulation types were exclusive to one or another approach. Relocating formulations, found only in psychoanalysis, propose that the experiences in the clients narratives are connected to experiences at other times or places. Exaggerating formulations, found only in cognitive psychotherapy, exaggerate the clients talk by recasting it as something that is apparently implausible. The contrast between relocating and exaggerating formulations suggests that, despite recent theories in the two approaches being more compatible, interactional differences still exist between cognitive psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.

A brief intervention for risky drinking--analysis of videotaped consultations in primary health care.

In order to study activity in conducting brief alcohol intervention, a total of 83 consecutive consultations by eight general practitioners were videotaped. The categorization included the nature of the patients health problems and whether alcohol consumption was elicited. The discussions were compared to previously given instructions. Alcohol consumption was elicited in 9/34 of the consultations where enquiry was indicated by the instructions, and rarely in any other situations. The activity among the individual physicians varied, but none of them elicited systematically in all situations with indication. No information was given to any of these patients concerning the relation between their symptoms and alcohol consumption. In conclusion, enquiring and advising on alcohol were seldom performed. More training is needed, especially on how to inform individual patients of the health risks of alcohol.