title: Therapeutic immediacy across long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy: an evidence-based case study.
abstract: C. E. Hill (2004) recently developed the concept of therapist immediacy to capture discussion by the therapist about the therapeutic relationship that occurs in the here-and-now of a therapy session. This concept has been expanded to include discussion about the therapeutic relationship by both the client and therapist, captured by the term therapeutic immediacy (K. Kuutmann & M. Hilsenroth, 2011). Although prior research has examined the use of therapeutic immediacy across short-term treatment, the present study is the first to examine the use of immediacy across a long-term (4 years) psychotherapy. Also, this is the first study to assess the interrater reliability of therapeutic immediacy, which was found to achieve good to excellent levels across raters. The most frequently used categories of client and therapist immediacy are presented. Finally, the authors provide an in-depth qualitative examination of 5 therapeutic immediacy segments across the treatment judged by the raters to have high levels of depth/intensity (4.5 or higher out of 5) to examine the role of therapeutic immediacy in exploring meaningful treatment issues. Clinical utility, potential limitations, and future research on therapeutic immediacy are discussed.
authors: Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies, Adelphi University,Garden City, NY 11530, USA. jasonblum@nyc.rr.com
authors: Jason
authors: J
authors: Mayotte-Blum
authors: Jenelle
authors: J
authors: Slavin-Mulford
authors: Meaghan
authors: M
authors: Lehmann
authors: Frank
authors: F
authors: Pesale
authors: Nikaya
authors: N
authors: Becker-Matero
authors: Mark
authors: M
authors: Hilsenroth
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000328:Adult; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008134:Long-Term Care / Q000379:methods*; D009769:Object Attachment; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D011575:Psychoanalytic Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D011594:Psychometrics; D012650:Self Disclosure; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology; D035502:Trust