Therapist’s notes and measures of the referential process. A possibile "analytic third".

Journal title RICERCA PSICOANALITICA
Author/s Rachele Mariani, Attà Negri
Publishing Year 2015 Issue 2015/3
Language Italian Pages 15 P. 119-133 File size 106 KB
DOI 10.3280/RPR2015-003009
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

The Author presents an analysis of a therapist’s notes on the clinical work with a patient by means of Multiple Code Theory computerized linguistic measures. In accordance with literature the results show a strong connection between the linguistic properties of the therapist’s notes and the effectiveness of treatment. Thus, the linguistic analysis of the therapist’s notes not only expands the possibilities of clinical research, but also could be a useful support to understand and predict the evolution of a case and the type of relationship developed by the therapeutic couple. Clinicians that adopt this methodology in their professional practice have a useful tool facilitating supervision and reflection on the case. This tool can be considered as an "analytic third" monitoring and strengthening the referential process that connects therapists to their lived emotional experience and to patients.

Keywords: Multiple code theory, referential process, change factors, therapeutic relationship, supervision

  1. American Psychiatric Association (2001). DSM-IV-TR. Manuale diagnostico e statistico dei disturbi mentali. Text revision. Milano: Masson.
  2. Andrei C., Bucci W., Keable H., Maskit B., Hoffman L. (2008). Trajectory of a child analysis as seen through treatment notes. Poster presented at the international meeting of the Society for Psychotherapy Research, Barcelona, Spain.
  3. Bucci W. (1997). Psychoanalysis and cognitive science: A multiple code theory. New York:
  4. Guilford [trad.it. (1999). Psicoanalisi e scienze cognitive. Una teoria del codice multiplo. Roma: Fioriti].
  5. Bucci W. (2007). Beneath the surface of the therapeutic interaction: The psychoanalytic method in modern dress. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 55(4), 1355-1397. DOI: 10.1177/000306510705500412
  6. Bucci W., Kabasakalian R., RA Research Group (1992). Instructions for scoring Referential Activity (RA) in transcripts of spoken narrative texts. Ulm, Germany: Ulmer Textbank.
  7. [trad.it. (2000). La valutazione dell’Attività Referenziale. Roma: Kappa].
  8. Bucci W., Maskit B. (2006). A weighted dictionary for eferential Activity. In: J.G. Shanahan, Y. Qu e J. Wiebe (Eds.), Computing attitude and affect in text (pp. 49-60). Dordrecht: Springer.
  9. Bucci W., Maskit B., Hoffman L. (2012). Objective measures of subjective experience. The use of therapist notes in process-outcome research. Psychodynamic Psychiatry, 40(2), 303-340. DOI: 10.1521/pdps.2012.40.2.303.CarliR.,PanicciaR.M.(2003).Analisidelladomanda.Teoriaetecnicadell’interventoinpsicologiaclinica.Bologna:ilMulino
  10. Crisafulli G., Bucci W., Hart A., Hoffman L., Kolod S., Newirth J. (2011). Multiple perspectives on the treatment process in a 9 session treatment. Panel presented at the meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association, New York, NY.
  11. De Coro A., Mariani R. (2006). L’Attività Referenziale. Un costrutto per lo studio del linguaggio delle narrative nella psicoterapia dinamica. In: N. Dazzi, V. Lingiardi e A. Colli (Eds.), La ricerca in psicoterapia (pp. 437-461). Milano: Cortina.
  12. Gill M.M. (1994). Psychoanalysis in Transition. New Jersey: Analytic.
  13. Green A. (2003). The pluralism of sciences and psychoanalytic thinking. In: M. Leuzinger-Bohleber, A.U. Dreher, J. Canestri, (Eds.), Pluralism and Unity? Methods of Research in Psychoanalysis, pp. 26-44. London: The International Psychoanalytical Association.
  14. Guidano V.F. (1988). La complessità del Sé. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri.
  15. Hoffman L., Algus J., Braun W., Bucci W., Maskit B. (2013). Treatment notes: objective measures of language style point to clinical insights. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 61(3), 535-68. DOI: 10.1177/0003065113489026
  16. Mariani R. (2009). Per uno studio del Processo Referenziale in Psicoterapia Il Dizionario delle Parole Riflessive (IREF) un indicatore linguistico in relazione all’ IWRAD nello studio delle narrative. Tesi di Dottorato. Roma: Università La Sapienza.
  17. Mariani R., De Coro A. (2013). Study of a Short-term Treatment through Referential Activity Linguistic Measures. Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome, 16(1), 42-53.
  18. Mariani R., Maskit B., Bucci W., De Coro A. (2013). Linguistic measures of the referential process in psychodynamic treatment: The English and Italian versions. Psychotherapy Research, 23(4), 430-447. DOI: 10.1080/10503307.2013.794399
  19. Maskit B. (2011). DAAP Math I: Word Count Base. Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3goZAni6zBkMGIwODExOGUtZDgzNi00ODNjLTk0NjEtZjllZjg1ZjJhMjQ1/edit?pli_1.
  20. Maskit B., Murphy S. (2011). The Discourse Attributes Analysis Program. Retrieved from http://www.thereferentialprocess.org/the-discourse-attributes-analysis-program-daap.
  21. Meares R. (2008). La memoria episodica, il trauma e la narrazione del sé. In: Williams R. (a cura di), Trauma e relazioni. Milano: Cortina.
  22. Perron R. (2002). Reflections on psychoanalytic research problems – a French-speaking view. In: Fonagy et al. (Eds.), An Open Door Review of Outcome Studies in Psychoanalysis, 2nd Edition, pp. 3-9. New York, NY: International Psychoanalytical Association.
  23. Ricoeur P. (1970). Freud and philosophy. New Haven: Yale University.
  24. Tuckett D. (1994). Developing a grounded hypothesis to understand a clinical process: The role of conceptualization in validation. International Journal of PsychoAnalysis 75,
  25. 1159-1180.
  26. Tuckett D. (2000). Commentary on Michels’s “The case history”. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 48, 403-411. DOI: 10.1177/00030651000480021206
  27. Ugazio V., Negri A., Fellin L. (2015). Freedom, Goodness, Power, and Belonging: The Semantics of Phobic, Obsessive-Compulsive, Eating, and Mood Disorders. Journal of constructivist psychology, 28(2), 1-23. DOI: 10.1080/10720537.2014.951109
  28. Viderman S. (1979). The analytic space; Meaning and problems. Psychoanalytic Quarterly 48, 257-291.

  • Relation between referential and reflexive processes: an explorative study Giovanna Esposito, Livia Savarese, Barbara Squitieri, in Counselling Psychology Quarterly /2019 pp.186
    DOI: 10.1080/09515070.2018.1428528

Rachele Mariani, Attà Negri, Note del terapeuta e misure del processo referenziale. Un possibile "terzo analitico" in "RICERCA PSICOANALITICA" 3/2015, pp 119-133, DOI: 10.3280/RPR2015-003009