Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Identifier

6671

Date

2021

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Psychology

Committee Chair

Jeffrey Berman

Committee Member

James Murphy

Committee Member

Robert Cohen

Abstract

Therapist paraphrases are integral to clinical interviewing and are believed to promote common-factor variables like empathy and congruence. However, few studies have used an experimental design to examine therapist paraphrases independent of other treatment components. The purpose of this study was to study the degree to which therapist paraphrases influence outcome expectancy, treatment credibility, empathy, congruence, and the working alliance compared to another verbal response type: the minimal encourager. Participants were assigned to hear two therapy interactions in a random order. These interactions contained different levels of therapist paraphrases and minimal encouragers. Multivariate analyses revealed that paraphrases generally resulted in more favorable perceptions of therapy interactions. Follow-up analyses revealed that paraphrases generally produced higher scores across all variables, but the difference was statistically significant only for empathy and congruence. These results provide evidence that paraphrases make therapists appear more empathetic and congruence, at least compared to using minimal encouragers alone.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to the local University of Memphis Electronic Theses & dissertation (ETD) Repository.

Download

Share

COinS