title: Achieving an empathic stance: dialogical sequence analysis of a change episode.
abstract: Abstract This study examined a client's therapeutic progress within one session of an 18-session child neurological assessment. The analysis focused on a parent-psychologist dialogue in one session of the assessment process. Dialogical sequence analysis (DSA; Leiman, 2004, 2012) was used as a micro-analytic method to examine the developing discourse. The analysis traced the mother's developing of a reflective stance toward herself and her problematic ways of interacting with her daughter, who was the client. During the dialogue, the mother began to recognize her own contribution in maintaining the problematic pattern. Her gradual acknowledgment of the child's perspective and her growing sense of the child's otherness were mediated by an observer position (third-person view) toward the problematic pattern, which allowed a flexible exchange between the perspectives of self and the other. The results demonstrate the parallel development of intrapersonal and interpersonal empathy shown previously to characterize the transition from stage 3 (problem statement/clarification) to stage 4 (understanding/insight) in the assimilation of problematic experiences sequence (Brinegar, Salvi, Stiles, & Greenberg, 2006).
authors.affiliation: School of Educational Sciences and Psychology, University of Eastern Finlan, Joensuu, Finland. soile.tikkanen@mailsuomi.com
authors.forename: Soile
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tikkanen
authors.forename: William B
authors.initials: WB
authors.lastname: Stiles
authors.forename: Mikael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Leiman
mesh_terms: D002675:Child, Preschool; D003142:Communication; D004645:Empathy; D006801:Humans; D007806:Language Disorders / Q000523:psychology; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology*; D017064:Process Assessment, Health Care; D011368:Professional-Family Relations; D011584:Psychology