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.