Carolina Altimir

• PhD Psychotherapy Research; MSc Clinical Psychology;
• Assistant Professor at Alberto Hurtado University

The present article seeks to reflect on the notion of “children’s voice” and to problematize the way in which childhood social studies have attempted to approach it. The argument draws on the definition of children’s voices as the first-person expression of the relational network of positionings and social echoes that children articulate in a singu...

The health conditions generated by the COVID-19 pandemic severely restricted in-person therapy, and as a result online therapy was put into practice. The objective of this study was to describe and analyse, from the perspective of the therapist, how the pandemic has influenced their experience and clinical practice. Qualitative interviews were cond...

This article is an introduction to this special issue dedicated to promoting the building of bridges between research and clinical practice. The purpose of this compendium is to delve into the relevance and possibilities that the Practice-Based Evidence (PBE) paradigm offers, which includes establishing a two-way dialogue between clinical practice...

Depression has a high prevalence throughout the world, and its management and recovery still constitute a challenge for mental health professionals. Objective : The aim of the study was to characterize the subjective experience of recovery from depression based on the perspective of those who suffer from it. Method : Forty participants from two S...

Cet article est consacré à la question des conditions permettant un dialogue interdisciplinaire constructif entre d’une part la théorie et la pratique psychanalytiques et d’autre part la recherche neuroscientifique centrée sur le concept de processus psychanalytique. La première partie est une évocation de la controverse actuelle entre la psychanal...

After more than a century of existence, theoretical development, research, and clinical practice within the psychoanalytic movement have consistently demonstrated that psychoanalysis is not a unitary and autonomous discipline. This has been evidenced by the various ways in which psychoanalytic thought and practice have been informed by and have est...

This chapter reviews the concept of affect regulation from the perspective of the functional domain criteria, in an attempt to understand and describe its role for psychopathology, and specifically for depression and personality dysfunction. It incorporates the ongoing discussions within the fields of psychiatry, psychology, and psychopathology res...

Research on the therapeutic relationship has underscored its central role for the therapeutic change process, indicating the relevance of determining the specific elements and mechanisms involved in its configuration (Knobloch-Fedders, Elkin, & Kiesler, 2014). Research on ruptures of the therapeutic relationship has yielded particular contributions...

Objetivo: Comprender las dinámicas mediante las cuales los pacientes significan su experiencia de la depresión. Metodología: Se utilizó una metodología cualitativa, basada en la Teoría Fundamentada. Se realizaron entrevistas semiestructuradas a 10 pacientes diagnosticados de un trastorno del ánimo con episodio depresivo, por el que habían estado e...

In 100 years of clinical research and 40 years of empirical research, the concept of psychoanalytic process continues to elude a consensual definition, probably because the problem and methodology must be approached in a different way. This article outlines the empirical implications of the epistemological model exposed in a previous article, by pr...

This is an article devoted to the topic of the conditions for a constructive interdisciplinary dialogue between psychoanalytic theory and practice and research in mind disciplines neighbouring psychoanalysis applied to the concept of psychoanalytic process. The first section reviews the contemporary controversy about psychoanalysis and research and...

The aim of this study is to reconstruct and understand, through a collaborative process between researcher and clinician, the therapist's subjective experience of a single case during significant episodes of therapy. This case study draws on a combination of two methodological approaches that we believe are relevant for practice oriented research....

Despite decades of research on the therapeutic relationship and the therapeutic alliance and their connection with therapeutic outcomes (Horvath, Del Re, Flückiger, & Symonds, 2011), only a handful of studies have examined how they are experienced by the therapy participants. The aim of the present study is to describe the therapeutic relationship...

The questions that guide psychotherapy process research are: what changes in psychotherapy? And, how does that change occur? These questions have been present in clinical settings and psychotherapy research for decades, generating a substantial amount of knowledge for the discipline. Based on a questioning of the limitations of traditional psychoth...

This study examines clients’ and therapists’ verbal communication during psychotherapy, in order to determine its relation to ongoing change and outcome. It replicates previous studies showing the specificity of verbalizations depending on the speaker (client or therapist) and the phase of therapy, adding its relation to change measured at the leve...

The nonverbal, implicit and affective regulation process of psychotherapy patients was studied through their facial-affective displays during Confrontation and Withdrawal Ruptures, as well as the evolution of this display throughout therapy. Twenty-six rupture episodes selected from a total of five individual therapeutic processes from different th...

The therapeutic alliance is considered the most robust process variable associated with positive therapeutic outcome in a variety of psychotherapeutic models [Alexander, L. B., & Luborsky, L. (1986). The Penn Helping Alliance Scales. In L. S. Greenberg & W. M. Pinsoff (Eds.), The psychotherapeutic process: A research handbook (pp. 325-356). New Yor...

Objectives: This paper analyzes the relationship between ongoing change and final outcome in therapies carried out in natural settings with 39 clients. Method: Ongoing change was assessed through generic change indicators (GCIs), an observational method designed to label the content of change moments by selecting one specific GCI from the sequen...

Resumen La investigación ha demostrado la fuerte relación entre alianza terapéutica y resultados en psicoterapia. Una buena alianza está asociada a mejores resultados en psicoterapia. Para medir alianza se han desarrollado una serie de instrumentos para terapeutas, pacientes, y observadores. Los instrumentos observacionales son menos intrusivos, di...

Research has shown the strong association between therapeutic alliance and therapeutic outcomes. A good alliance is linked with better outcomes in psychotherapy. A number of instruments have been developed to measure the alliance aimed at therapists, patients, and observers. Observational instruments are less intrusive, and reduce the possible effe...

The concept of the alliance has received increasing attention from both clinicians and researchers over the past thirty years. Yet it remains only vaguely defined, and its role and effect in therapy continues to be controversial. The goal of this paper is to clarify the meaning of the concept as it is perceived by clients and therapists, and to com...

El concepto de la alianza terapéutica ha sido objeto de una creciente atención por parte de terapeutas y investigadores en los últimos treinta años. No obstante, aún no se ha llegado a una definición precisa del mismo, y aún no existe consenso sobre su papel y efecto en la terapia. El objetivo de este artículo es clarificar el significado del conce...

Clients', therapists', and observers' identification of change was studied in 27 therapeutic processes, and agreement on the amount, temporal location, and content of change was related to outcome. Results show that clients reported more changes in successful therapies. Client-therapist temporal match of change moments was low irrespective of outco...

Aim: The aim of this study was to review the previously demonstrated fact that patient-reported working alliance is the strongest predictor of therapeutic outcome, compared to therapists and external observers (Horvath, 2005). For that purpose, this research intends to establish the relationship between the quality of the therapeutic alliance accor...

A home visit intervention program for adolescents throughout their pregnancy and during the early stages of motherhood was evaluated. The participants (N = 90) were part of a larger group of adolescents treated in two health centers in a poor neighborhood in Santiago, Chile. The program was carried out by volunteer community health monitors and eva...

As described by many theorists, emotional expressions contribute to the activation and regulation of personal emotional experiences and communicate something about internal states and intentions. These emotional expressions can be observed in the words used in our speech and nonverbal behaviors, even when nonverbal behaviors are synchronized to one...

Therapeutic change was studied in four short- term psychodynamic oriented therapies. Micro-changes were analyzed through the hierarchy of Generic Change Indicators (CI) and through the “subjective discomfort”, “interpersonal relation- ships” and “social role” scales of Lamberts’ OQ-45.2. The four therapies showed a positive correlation between the...

This article presents a theoretical and empirical revision which aim is discuss about patient-therapist vocal coordination as a relevant dimension for the study of regulatory processes in psychotherapy. The main idea is that vocal coordination as an expression of an interactive regulatory process constitutes an aspect of the intersubjective field e...

Palabras clave: coordinación vocal, regulación mutua, proceso psicoterapéutico. La investigación sobre la relación entre los aspec-tos del proceso y los resultados de la psicoterapia se ha centrado en los últimos años en el estudio de las técnicas e interacciones facilitadoras del cambio psíquico. También ha prestado mayor atención al análisis del...

Therapeutic change was studied in four short-term psychodynamic oriented therapies. Micro-changes were analyzed through the hierarchy of Generic Change Indicators (CI) and through the "subjective discomfort", "interpersonal relationships" and "social role" scales of Lamberts' OQ-45.2. The four therapies showed a positive correlation between the evo...

Drawing on the speech acts theory, a linguistic pattern was identified that could be expected to be associated to therapeutic change, characterized by being uttered in the first person singular and present indicative, and by being self-referential in its propositional content. The frequency of the pattern was examined among verbalizations defined a...

Ongoing change and therapeutic outcome were studied in five psychotherapeutic processes: three brief psychodynamic therapies, one social constructionist family therapy, and one group therapy of a comprehensive nature for drug abuse patients. Using qualitative methodology, in-session and extrasession change moments were identified and classified in...

In-session change episodes were studied in four psychotherapeutic processes: a brief psychodynamic, psychodynamic-cognitive, a family social-constructionist, and a group integrative therapy. A qualitative confirmatory methodology was applied to assess observed and video-recorded sessions. The analysis instrument was a hierarchical list of generic q...

Se estudiaron episodios de cambio en cuatro procesos de psicoterapia: psicoanalítica breve, psicoanalítico-cognitiva, familiar construccionista-social e integrativa de grupo. Se aplicó metodología cualitativa, confirmatoria, a sesiones observadas y grabadas en audio y video. El instrumento de análisis fue una jerarquía de indicadores de cambio gené...