Browsing by Subject "muutosvalmius"

Objective. Ambivalence refers to a state where there is incongruity between different factors driving an agent towards and away from change. An ambivalent person will sometimes act against change, even though they want to change and are aware of effective methods of change. In psychotherapy, ambivalence often manifests as the rejection of guidance, avoiding meaningful topics and engaging in other unproductive behaviors that work against the goals of treatment. The objective of this review is to examine the connection between ambivalence in psychotherapy clients and the outcome of treatment. Methods. A search was done using Google Scholar, Helka and PubMed databases. “Ambivalence” and “resistance” were used as keywords combined with ”psychotherapy”, ”therapy”, ”psychotherapy outcomes” and ”psychotherapy drop-out rate”. Predefined criteria were followed when choosing the final material. Results and conclusions. The evidence reviewed here indicates a possible connection between client ambivalence and the outcome of psychotherapy. Counter-change talk in client dialogue, which is used to measure client ambivalence, was found to be connected to resistance in psychotherapy, disconnects in the therapeutic relationship and poor outcome. However, the evidence was not unequivocal: one study found that clients who reported feeling ambivalent about treatment before the initiation of therapy had better outcomes when compared with clients who approached treatment with exaggerated positivity. Harmful ambivalence can be difficult to notice before additional problems arise. Psychotherapists should receive basic training on how to discern and solve ambivalence. Methods that are specifically designed to resolve ambivalence should also be integrated into standard practices more efficiently. Some examples of methods that are both effective and easy to integrate are the two-chair technique and motivational interviewing. In addition to paying more attention to ambivalence on the clinical field, more research is needed.