ABSTRACT
Chapter 5, “The Irt – CARE Transtheoretical, Psycholinguistic Model of Ruptures and Repairs,” includes a transtheoretical or overarching psycholinguistic model of the rupture and repair process that considers ruptures from a psycholinguistic perspective and incorporates verbal, paralinguistic, and nonverbal aspects of a psycholinguistic framework. The transtheoretical model, the Irt – CARE Transtheoretical, Psycholinguistic Model of Ruptures and Repairs, embraced in this chapter considers the linguistic styles of therapists and patients and underscores how therapists think and speak about their work as well as their understanding of the inner experiences of their own and of their patients. It emphasizes the verbal, paralinguistic, and nonverbal dynamic between therapists and clients, and delves into the difficult moment-to-moment transitions during a rupture that challenge therapists as they strive to navigate disagreements with competence and empathy. The model can assist therapists during dialogue with their patients so that they become less stuck during ruptures and so that these impasses do not become irreparable.
The model included in this chapter, the Irt – CARE Transtheoretical, Psycholinguistic Model of Ruptures and Repairs, is transtheoretical in that it can be useful across theories and treatments and in that it relies on ideas from different theoretical orientations to inform the alliance, the rupture-repair process, and the ending phase of therapy. The overarching linguistic, paralinguistic, and nonverbal constructs of the transtheoretical model described in Chapter 5 can assist therapists to chart their course toward rupture resolution and can inform the therapeutic alliance and the rupture-repair process. Relying on psycholinguistic concepts, the model can inform therapists about different verbal and nonverbal elements of language that can help to recognize what is taking place on a moment-to-moment basis between the members of the therapeutic dyad. The model highlights the need for therapists to be attuned to their own and their clients’ inner thoughts and to the use of language that may suggest tension in the relationship and suggests that therapists pay attention to what patients say, how they say it, and to what patients do not say.
