Interpersonal motivational systems and intersubjective negotiation in the psychotherapy sessions: a microanalytic approach

The study of the therapeutic process based on the transcript sessions permits to describe to a microanalytic level of analysis the different dimensions emerging in the clinical dialogue (motivational systems, therapeutic alliance, defences, etc.) and their role in the mechanisms of therapeutic change. This work focused on the relationship between the motivational systems (Liotti & Monticelli, 2008) and the rupture and repair processes of the therapeutic alliance (Safran & Muran, 2000; Colli & Lingiardi, 2009; Colli, Gentile, Condino, Lingiardi, 2019). From the perspective of the motivational systems we hypothesized that: (a) the cooperative system predicts the level of collaboration in the session; (b) the rank system predicts the presence of the ruptures in the session; (c) the shift from rank to cooperative system predict the presence of the resolution processes in the session. Method: three raters conducted a blind evaluation of a sample of 130 sessions (390 segments; 7,214 narrative units) with 65 patients in psychodynamic and cognitive treatment. Measures: We adopted the Assessing Interpersonal Motivations in Transcripts method (AIMIT; Liotti & Monticelli, 2008) for the coding of the motivational systems and the Collaborative Interactions Scale Revised (CISR; Colli, Gentile, Condino, Lingiardi, 2019) for the assessment of therapeutic-alliance ruptures and resolutions. Results: the linear regression evidenced that the cooperative system is predictive of collaborative process (=.752, sig.=.001), the rank system is predictive of the rupture processes (=.541, sig.=.000) and the shift from rank to cooperative system is predictive of the resolution processes (=.361, sig.=.000). Conclusions: The data are in line with previous studies (Lingiardi, Fassone, Gentile, Ivaldi, Colli, 2014; Brasini et al., 2018) and suggests the crucial role of the motivational systems in the process of intersubjective negotiation. Clinical implications of these results will be discussed.