Homework Instructions and Compliance Assessing in the Therapeutic Process: An Analysis of Therapists’ Verbal Behavior.
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2020
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Universitas Psychologica
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Abstract
Instructions are a common resource used by behavioral therapists
to assign therapeutic homework. However, understanding how clients
learn with instructions is better known in laboratory research than in
clinical research. The present study aims to explore changes in the
way of instructing and reviewing the client’s compliance throughout the
therapeutic process. We analyzed the therapist’s verbal behavior during
211 recorded sessions corresponding to 19 cases treated by 11 behavioral
therapists (53% male and 47% female). The sessions were divided into
four stages according to the timing of the intervention and coded by using
a previously validated coding system (SYST-INTER-INSTR). Results
show that instructions become less specific towards the last stage of the
intervention. However, therapists assess task compliance in the same way
towards the end of the therapeutic process. The change in specificity
suggests that the client’s behavior changes from being controlled by
instructions to being controlled by natural contingencies. However, to
make sure the clinical change remains; therapists assess and reinforce the
client’s compliance until the end of the intervention. Although clinical
implications of the results, some limitations (i.e., not considering the type
of task instructed) should be addressed in future studies.
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Keywords
Homework, Verbal behavior, Compliance, Therapeutic process