ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the responses of the listener, the troubles-telling itself, the unpacking of the meaning of the troubles-telling, and the differences between troubles-telling in psychotherapy and story-telling in everyday conversation. The unfolding of a troubles-telling requires responses from the hearer, who in the following case is the therapist. The constraining factor in everything therapists say should be the relevance to the task of therapy. Therapists use a device called change-of-state tokens, to display their recognition that clients have given them new information. The chapter shows that how the therapeutic dialogue is based on our knowledge of everyday conversation, but differs from it in several important ways. Affiliation, in strong contrast to alignment, is emotional. When troubles-telling occurs in everyday conversation, the expectation of the teller is that a sympathetic response will be evoked. In the private practice of psychotherapy, where adults pay for a service, they know they will have to address sensitive issues.
