The proposed work is based on the observation that therapeutic change principles common to different orientations may be found at a level of abstraction between the specific clinical procedures used, and the higher order theoretical constructs that explain why these procedures are likely to be effective. Using one such principle, namely the use to therapeutic feedback to enhance a patient's/client's awareness, the proposed research will be to develop a hierarchically-arrange taxonomy of the parameters associated with such feedback. Significant change episodes will be sampled from 50 experienced and highly qualified therapists; 25 vignettes will be sampled from psychodynamic-interpersonal therapists and 25 from cognitive-behavioral therapists. Each vignette will be coded with regard to the same set of attributes (thoughts, feelings, actions, etc.), and then grouped statistically be means of cluster analysis procedures. We hypothesize that similarities will be found across orientations for the higher order clusters, with differences appearing lower in the taxonomy. The attribute coding system used to generate the taxonomy may also be construed as a common research language to describe therapeutic interventions as they are carried out from within cognitive-behavioral and psychodynamic orientations. To determine the feasibility of using our coding system as a common language, a study will be conducted to compare the interscorer reliability among coders originally trained in the two different therapeutic schools. Finally, the coding system will be used to compare psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioral therapy sessions. In contrast to previous research that has compared these two orientations on the basis of the form of therapist's statement (e.g., reflection), we propose to investigate similarities and differences with regard to therapist's focus on different aspects of the client's/patients functioning.
