Four Therapeutic Approaches to the Same Patient

Interviewing behaviors of four psychiatrists, each from a different school of psychotherapy, were rated to determine whether conceptual differences of therapy were distinguishable in dyadic interviewing. The Truax Carkhuff measures of accurate empathy, nonpossessive warmth, and genuineness were used to rate the psychiatrists' behaviors. The same patient was seen for three consecutive sessions by each of the four therapists. Thus an attempt was made to control the variable of patient differences. Findings indicated, as expected, that different schools of psychotherapy share certain behaviors. However, the psychoanalyst displayed significantly higher empathy and the gestaltist displayed significantly more genuineness and less warmth than did the other three. The observed interviewing behaviors were consistent with these two interviewers' conceptual approaches. The analyst saw his theory as valuing empathy while the gestaltist viewed his theory as emphasizing genuineness even at the expense of warmth. Despite the Jungian's conceptual emphasis on warmth and genuineness his interviews were not distinguishable from the other therapists' on these two variables. Although theoretically different, the Kleinian's interviewing on the variables measured did not differ from the Jungian's but was significantly lower than the analyst's in empathy and differed from gestaltist's in warmth and genuineness.