Verbal aversive control in clinical interaction.

Background: Aversive control techniques involve aversive stimuli to generate behavioral change. The purpose of this work is to analyze the use of verbal aversive control by psychologists during the clinical interaction, combining respondent and operant explanations.

Method: Observational methodology is used to analyze 26 session recordings of three different cases of anxiety disorder, relationship problem and low mood problem (27h 32') carried out by two psychologists of the Therapeutic Institute of Madrid.

Verbal interaction patterns in the clinical context: a model of how people change in therapy.

Background: The paper “Why do people change in therapy? A preliminary study" (2006), published in this journal, led to the beginning of a line of research based on observational methodology and aimed at the clarification of the therapeutic process. Throughout these years, significant progress has been made towards an explanation of clinical change. In this paper, a synthesis of this line of research is presented, along with a series of conclusions that can, to some extent, provide an answer to the questions we posed in the aforementioned first paper.