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Observational Qualitative Psychotherapy Process Research.

While the analysis of observation based data has long been a facet of qualitative research methodology, observational qualitative research methods are less well known to readers of psychotherapy process research than qualitative self-report, typically interview-based, data collection methods. The pa...

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Published in:Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy Vol. 56; no. 1; pp. 1 - 6
Main Authors: Timulak, Ladislav, Keogh, Daragh
Format: Journal Article
Published: Springer Nature Mar2026
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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      jtl: Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy
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      dt: Mar2026
      vid: 56
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      pid: 237
      pub: Springer Nature
      place: New York, New York
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        191072357
        187858437
        10.1007/s10879-025-09690-w
        191072357
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        atl: Observational Qualitative Psychotherapy Process Research.
      aug:
        au:
          Timulak, Ladislav
          Keogh, Daragh
        affil: https://ror.org/02tyrky19 Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
      sug:
        subj:
          Psychotherapy
          Clinical Research
          Qualitative Studies
          Observational Methods
          Process Assessment (Health Care)
          Study Design
          Audiorecording
          Emotions
          Psychotherapy, Psychodynamic
          Task Performance and Analysis
          Triangulation
          Models, Theoretical
      ab: While the analysis of observation based data has long been a facet of qualitative research methodology, observational qualitative research methods are less well known to readers of psychotherapy process research than qualitative self-report, typically interview-based, data collection methods. The paper introduces Observational Qualitative Psychotherapy Process Research as a genre of qualitative psychotherapy process research. Brief Structured Recall, Theory Building Qualitative Case Studies, Theoretically-Informed Qualitative Case Conceptualization Studies, Task Analysis, and Conversational Analysis of Therapeutic Interventions are each introduced as distinct variants of observational qualitative psychotherapy process research and examples of the areas of research interest these variants have been applied to are discussed. Commonalities across these variants of the approach are discussed including the use of transcripts and session recordings of therapy sessions, the adaptation of flexible research strategies to investigate in-session processes, the use of an explicit theoretical framework, and the incorporation of quantitative methods to complement or triangulate qualitative strategies.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Journal Article
      ougenre: Article
    language: English
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