Across a number of theoretical orientations, the manifestation and working through of clients' central relationship patterns is considered to be an important aspect of psychotherapy process. The Core Conflictual Relationship Theme (CCRT) method was developed as an operationalization of transference, or the transfer of an individual's core relational schemas across relationships. Studies of therapeutic transference using pathological client samples have shown that there is some overlap between clients' relationship patterns with others and those that emerge with the therapist. The main objectives of the present research was to extend the study of therapeutic transference to therapies with high-functioning clients and to improve the methodology used in transference research by exploring an alternate method of collecting client narratives about their relationship with the therapist. / The first study explored the manifestation of transference with high-functioning clients in early sessions. Factor analyses of Wish (W), Response of Other (RO) and Response of Self (RS) components of the CCRT were conducted to examine the relationship between client relational themes with significant others and client relational themes with the therapist. Findings within the Wish (W) and Response of Other (RO) components indicated a complementary pattern of relating in which the therapist was idealized and others were devalued, and findings within the RS component indicated a concordant relational transfer, in which clients had a negative response to both the therapist and others. Additionally, control issues emerged in the W component for significant others and in the RS component for the therapist. / The second study addressed methodological limitations found in previous studies by drawing therapist narratives from a Participant Critical Event (PCE) interview rather than from psychotherapy sessions. In the PCE interview, client narratives about the therapist are not constrained by the presence of the therapist, resulting in a greater availability of potentially more candid descriptions of the therapeutic relationship. Factor analyses for the W and RO components indicated a complementary pattern of relating, in which the therapist was devalued and others were idealized, and findings for the RS component indicate a concordant relational transfer, in which clients felt bad with both the therapist and others. Additionally, the factor structure of the W and RO components suggests that as clients experience control issues with significant others, they wish to adopt a submissive stance toward the therapist. / Although both studies yielded a similar overall pattern of complementary and concordant transference, there was an inversion in the valence of the complementary transference; in the first study, therapists were idealized and significant others were devalued while in the second study, therapists were devalued and others were idealized. Since the source of therapist narratives was the single greatest methodological difference between the two studies, the inversion in the findings could reasonably be attributed to the source of therapist narratives. Taken together, the results of these two studies suggest that the source of relational narratives is an important consideration in the study of relationship patterns. Clinical and research implications are discussed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.102828 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Tellides, Catherine. |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology.) |
| Rights | © Catherine Tellides, 2006 |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002589976, proquestno: AAINR32247, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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