Therapists’ questions to clients about what might be helpful can be supportive without being directive: a conversation analysis

ABSTRACT Shared decision-making about therapeutic methods has been proposed as a way of conceptualising, and assisting, collaboration in the therapeutic alliance. However, little is known about how psychotherapists actually create concrete, moment-by-moment opportunities for clients to share their ideas about what might be therapeutically helpful. We used conversation analysis to examine psychotherapists’ questions about what might be helpful in audio-recordings of early sessions of a collaborative-integrative therapy. We examined forty-two sessions involving seven dyads and identified 28 cases of questions either inviting clients’ ideas about helpful in-therapy methods or strategies outside the therapy room. Psychotherapists could invite clients’ ideas by using simple questions, however clients could find such questions problematic. Alternatively, psychotherapists could add scaffolding: offering support to the client in terms of how they might respond. However, this could erode clients’ autonomy to respond with their own ideas. We identified a conversational practice, de-specifying, which overcomes this dilemma: asking questions and providing scaffolding whilst also lessening the pressure on the client to go along with that scaffolding. A therapeutic style which includes scaffolding and de-specifying practices creates an opportunity for the client to contribute where clients are empathically supported, but not directed, in responding.