Improve psychotherapy outcomes in real time by developing your attunement through process coding.
Traditional model-based approaches to psychotherapy training often leave clinicians without the tools to recognize and respond to what truly matters in-session. This groundbreaking volume is a compendium of current best practices in process coding—a research-backed method for observing, categorizing, and analyzing therapy as it unfolds. By watching therapy videos and coding transcripts to track subtle verbal and nonverbal signals, therapists and clinicians in training can identify alliance ruptures, engagement shifts, and other critical markers that predict outcomes—before it's too late.
Leading experts Henny Westra, Catherine F. Eubanks, and Tali Z. Boritz bring together validated coding systems, practical demonstrations, and video-based examples to show how process-centered training enhances responsiveness and complements any therapeutic model. Designed to be used either alone or in tandem with select APA therapy videos, the book shows clinicians and trainees how to do the right thing at the right time by improving their flexibility, attunement, and client outcomes.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Chapter 1. Leveraging Process Science to Develop Moment-by-Moment Observational Skills
Henny A. Westra, Tali Z. Boritz, and Catherine F. Eubanks
Part I. Coding Systems Focused on Dyadic Processes
Chapter 2. Working Alliance Inventory – Observer Version (WAI-O)
Timothy Anderson, Adam O. Horvath, and Mia Schmittenberg
Chapter 3. The Rupture Resolution Rating System (3RS)
Catherine F. Eubanks, Kaitlin M. Williams, and Dustin Phan
Chapter 4. The Motivational Interviewing Skills Code 1.1 and the Adapted Client Resistance Code (A-CRC)
Alyssa D. Bartolomeo and Henny A. Westra
Chapter 5. Therapeutic Collaboration Coding System (TCCS)
Eugénia Ribeiro and Dulce Pinto
Chapter 6. Structural Analysis of Social Behavior (SASB) Interpersonal Gestalt Coding
Kenneth L. Critchfield, Caroline Ball, Akiva Gornish, Nina L. J. Rose, Hallie R. Goldman, Eleanor G. Harrison, and Julia E. Mackaronis
Part II. Coding Systems Focused on Client and/or Therapist Processes
Chapter 7. Multicultural Orientation Performance Task (MCO-PT)
Emma Freetly Porter and Jesse Owen
Chapter 8. The Experiencing Scale (EXP)
António Pazo Pires, Ana Daniela Barreto Aleixo, and Carolina Seybert
Chapter 9. Classification of Affective-Meaning States (CAMS)
Antonio Pascual-Leone and Florencia Cristoffanini
Chapter 10. Assimilation of Problematic Experiences Scale (APES)
Isabel Basto, Isabel Caro Gabalda, and William B. Stiles
Chapter 11. The Innovative Moments Coding System (IMCS)
Miguel M. Gonçalves, João Batista, and João Tiago Oliveira
Chapter 12. The Narrative-Emotion Process Coding System (NEPCS)
Tali Z. Boritz and Lynne Angus
Chapter 13. The Pausing Inventory Categorization System (PICS)
Heidi M. Levitt, Javier L. Rizo, and Nicholas A. Pierorazio
Chapter 14. Client and Therapist Vocal Quality Measures (CVQ & TVQ)
Jeanne C. Watson and Hadas Wiseman
Chapter 15. A Measure of Expressed Empathy (MEE)
Jeanne C. Watson and Signe Hjelen Stige
Chapter 16. Resource-Oriented Microprocess Analysis of Patients (ROMA-P)
Christoph Flückiger and Greta Probst
Part III. Conclusions and Future Directions
Chapter 17. Integrating Process Coding into Clinical Training: Key Considerations and Training Suggestions
Tali Z. Boritz, Catherine F. Eubanks, and Henny A. Westra
Chapter 18. Conclusions and Future Directions
Catherine F. Eubanks, Henny A. Westra, and Tali Z. Boritz
About the Author :
Henny A. Westra, PhD, is professor emeritus in the Department of Psychology at York University in Toronto, Canada. She has held numerous positions over her 30-year career including professor, researcher, workshop presenter and teacher, frontline clinician, and program developer. She has written, published, and presented widely on ambivalence, resistance, anxiety, training and the development of expertise, motivational interviewing, and cognitive behavioral therapy. She is the author of the book Motivational Interviewing in the Treatment of Anxiety and is a principal developer of the Adapted Client Resistance Code (A-CRC), featured in this book alongside numerous other process coding schemes.
Catherine F. Eubanks, PhD, is a professor at the Gordon F. Derner School of Psychology at Adelphi University and codirector of the Center for Alliance-Focused Training. She is coauthor of Therapist Performance Under Pressure, and coeditor of Rupture and Repair in Psychotherapy. She was previously an associate editor on the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology and is currently the managing editor of Psychotherapy Research.
Tali Z. Boritz, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at York University in Toronto, Canada. She is a clinical psychologist, researcher, and educator. Her work focuses on psychotherapy process and outcomes, with an emphasis on translating research into practical training tools for clinicians and trainees. She has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications and is coauthor of the book Deliberate Practice in Dialectical Behavior Therapy. She is past president of the North American chapter of the Society for Psychotherapy Research.
