Table 2.
Example transcripts from sessions rated high/low in emotional expression
| High Emotional Expression Transcript (Session Average 1.75) |
Low Emotional Expression Transcript (Session Average 0.28) |
|---|---|
| T: Is your boyfriend being on this nocturnal schedule and maybe not finishing his program a worry for you? I feel that you’re frustrated and anxious in an immediate sense of what’s going on right now, but there’s some concern about getting married, proceeding with that. | P: It’s awful. I hate saying goodbyes. I hate driving my son to the station to say goodbye. I hate driving my sister to say goodbye. <neutral tone and facial expression> |
| T: How does it make you feel when you do that? | |
| P: No, I mean, the pros outweigh the cons < quiet, restrained tone of voice>. | P: I guess, and this is just pure speculation, but I guess… |
| T: I think maybe part of what might go on inside is that thinking about these concerns is at times a scary, anxiety-provoking thought… because you want to proceed with marrying him, and the pros outweigh the cons, but he’s not taking care of himself. | T: What is it that you feel? / P: Um. / T: Sorry I cut you off. / P: No, that’s fine. It makes me feel anxious, it makes me feel sad, um, it’s just very hard, I don’t like it at all <laughter; smiling incongruously to statement>. |
| T: Just like the way you feel here. | |
| P: Yes… yes, I guess so. <tearing up> Maybe that’s why… I don’t know, I mean, he’s really smart, I just hope that he’ll soon figure what he wants to focus on. I know that in a few years if he didn’t he’d… <begins to fully cry, cries for a few moments>…<therapist offers tissue>. Thank you… | P: When I have tears, they could literally be for you and what you’re going through, they could be for us, or it could be, I don’t know. Because, I mean, there would have to be a thought associated with the emotion. A thought that, I’m assuming, triggered the emotion. <continued neutral tone/expression> And I don’t know what that thought is. I’d like to know what that thought is. But, um, the leaving I don’t like. I don’t like goodbyes. Never liked goodbyes. Well, I don’t know if that’s true, but I don’t like goodbyes. <coded small elevation in Anxiety/Distress from increase in physical agitation and pace of speech, but overall still relatively neutral/flat> |
| T: You’re worried about that, and what might happen to you both if that were to happen. | |
| P: <teary, weepy> I don’t know. He’s such a Type-A perfectionist, I don’t know how he keeps spiraling. I’m so worried about him all the time, it really gets to me. I’m really sad… <coded elevation in Grief/Sadness> |
Note. Both transcripts are adapted from sessions from the trial, particularly Session 10, for a patient with one of the top 3 ratings for emotional expression at this session versus a patient with one of the bottom 3 ratings for emotional expression. Transcripts have been edited for clarity and to eliminate potentially identifying information.