About this trial
Modern psychotherapy focuses on co-regulation, where therapist and patient interactively manage emotions. This co-regulation is seen in nonverbal communication like facial expressions, gestures, and prosody (vocal pitchs). Studies show body movements and even skin conductance synchronize between patients and therapists during sessions.
The RECiPROsody project builds on this by using technology (cameras, sensors) to record and analyze these synchronies in psychotherapy sessions. This project aims to understand how this "attunement" between therapist and patient contributes to successful therapy.
Researchers will explore how patients and therapists interact using a mobile app that records video, audio, physiological signals (heart rate), and movements. Questionnaires will assess patient well-being and therapist experience.
By studying these micro-processes, RECiPROsody hopes to gain insights into how the therapeutic relationship develops, including the connections between physical reactions, nonverbal communication, and overall progress. This knowledge can improve psychotherapeutic techniques and highlight the importance of the nonverbal communication in therapy.
Eligibility criteria
This trial accepts healthy volunteersQualifiers
Male and female adults between the ages of 20 and 60 years old who are referred to the HCC Italy Clinical and Psychotherapy Research Center
Disqualifiers
Patients under 20 years of age
Presence of paranoid or psychotic symptoms
Admissions to psychiatric Operative Units that have occurred within the last year since the start of psychotherapy at the HCC Italy Clinical and Psychotherapy Research Center
Trial population
All patients admitted to the HCC Italy Clinical and Psychotherapy Research Center and who meet the inclusion and exclusion criteria will be enrolled, after signing informed consent
Trial design
Cohort
Prospective
Treatments tested in this trial
Psychotherapy - Gestalt psychotherapy
Other interventionGestalt psychotherapy is an aesthetic-phenomenological approach that aims to improve self-awareness and integration by promoting emotional and relational well-being through what is happening in the present moment in the relationship with the therapist. The patient's current experiences are explored to better understand problems and behaviors and by promoting relational self-regulation
Treatment groups
Trial outcomes
Primary outcomes
Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation Outcome Measure (CORE-OM)
CORE-OM is a 34-item self-administered questionnaire useful for assessing the outcome of psychological interventions. The CORE items relate to four domains: subjective well-being (4 items), symptoms/problems (12 items), functioning (12 items), and risk (6 items). Use of the CORE-OM provides useful insights by facilitating understanding of the patient's progress during the psychotherapeutic process. Each item is scored on a 5-point scale ranging from 0 (not at all) to 4 (most or all the time). The total score is calculated by adding the response values of all 34 items. The minimum score that can be achieved is 0 and the maximum 136, with higher scores indicating higher distress. Severity consists of six categories, characterizing respondents' psychological distress as either healthy (a score \< 6), low-level (6-9), mild (10-14), moderate (15-19), moderate-severe (20-24) or severe (a score \> 24).
Therapist Response Questionnaire (TRQ)
The TRQ is a clinician report of 79 items that measure a wide spectrum of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors expressed by therapists toward their patients, ranging from relatively specific feelings (e.g., "I feel bored in sessions with him/her") to complex constructs, such as projective identification (e.g., "More than with most patients, I feel like I've been pulled into things that I didn't realize until after the session was over"). Items are derived by reviewing the clinical, theoretical, and empirical literature on countertransference and related variables, so that the instrument could be used comparably by therapists of any orientation. The clinicians assess each item on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (not true) to 5 (very true). A total TRQ score was calculated by summing all 79 variables. The minimum score that can be achieved is 79 and the maximum 395. This TRQ total score was supposed to capture the general level of self-reported countertransference.
Aesthetic Relational Knowing of the Therapist (ARK-T)
The ARK-T scale is a 21-items measure of the therapist's aesthetic and field intuition during the psychotherapeutic process. It is composed by three main factors, "Bodily Awareness" (8 items), "Intuitive Resonance" (8 items), "Affective Empathy" (5 items). Each item is scored on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The score could range from 21 to 105 and it could be correlate with the outcome of psychotherapy, or even with the measurement of relational factors such as the therapist's responsiveness, his or her self-compassion, and many other aspects developed within the various psychotherapeutic approaches. It will thus be possible to correlate this particular type of insight, to date little studied in the literature, with the effectiveness of psychotherapy, as well as with other aspects of the therapist's training and personality, e.g., personal psychotherapy, caring attitude toward self, ethics of responsivity toward the patient.
Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation - Assessment (CORE-A)
The CORE-A allows for the collection of demographic data regarding patient, referral (date, first episode, relapse), patient's resources (family, financial condition), previous or ongoing treatment to ongoing drug treatments, on the severity of the disorder (4-point scale) and its duration (\<6 months, 6-12 months, \>12 months, recurrent), data on self- and heterolesive risk (4-point scale), on the outcome of the assessment (accepted psychotherapy, sent, etc.)
Sponsors and contacts
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Istituto per la Ricerca e l'Innovazione Biomedica
Lead sponsor
Istituto di Gestalt HCC Italy - Centro Clinico e di Ricerca in Psicoterapia HCC Italy
Collaborator