The Therapeutic Cycle Model (TCM): Computer-assisted text ... · The Therapeutic Cycle Model (TCM):...

The Therapeutic Cycle Model (TCM): Computer-assisted text-analysis in psychotherapy

research

The identification and the analysis of change agents plays a central role for the

comprehension and the empirical investigation of the therapeutic process. The Therapeutic

cycle model (TCM; Mergenthaler, 1996, 1998, 2002a, b) is a transcript-based computer-

assisted text analytic tool which allows a quick and reliable description, identification and

analysis of the essential aspects of the therapeutic process. It can be applied to every form of

therapy which uses language as main and primary instrument, independent from specific

therapeutic orientations.

The TCM theoretically refers to two “change agents” common to most psychotherapeutic

schools: Affective experiencing and Cognitive mastery (Karasu, 1986). Moreover, it takes into

consideration the role of Narration within the therapeutic dialogue. The TCM describes the

dynamic interaction of these three variables over the time through a prototypical sequence

which allows a) the analysis of emotional-cognitive regulation and b) the identification of

key-moments within the sessions (micro-analysis) and along the whole treatment (macro-

analysis).

A computer assisted text-analysis (Mergenthaler, 1998) automatically measures Affective

experiencing, Cognitive mastery and Narration in the verbal expressions of patient-therapist

relationship within the transcripts. These variables are operationalized respectively as

Emotional tone (ET), Abstraction (AB) and Computerized Narrative Style (CNS). According

to the different combination of ET and AB, four Emotion-Abstraction Patterns (EAPs) are

identified, which in turn allow the analysis of different modalities of emotional-cognitive

regulation. Finally, the TCM assumes that a specific sequence of EAPs and CNS represent a

Therapeutic Cycle (Cycle), which locates key-moments within the transcripts analyzed.

In the present contribute I will introduce TCM’s theoretical and methodological issues as well

as the modalities of analysis. Afterwards, I will give a synthetic overview of TCM studies and

review some of them. Finally, I will discuss the empirical results and delineate future

perspectives of study relevant within the field of psychotherapy research.