Emotional arousal and autobiographical memory specificity within emotion episodes in brief psychotherapy for depression

The purpose of the current study was to investigate the empirical relationships among emotional arousal, autobiographical memory (ABM) specificity, therapeutic outcome, type of treatment, and phase of therapy within emotion episodes. The expression of emotional experience within emotion episodes was the primary unit of analysis. It was expected that better BDI improvement and higher emotional arousal would be associated with disclosure of more generic versus single event or eventless ABMs. It was expected also that BDI improvement would predict higher modal emotional arousal.; Emotion episodes within therapeutic sessions (N = 34) were drawn from the York I Depression Study, which were then rated for emotional arousal using the client emotional arousal scale (CEAS III). All identified EEs were coded for narrative mode sequences using the Narrative Process Coding System (NPCS) in order to identify external narrative sequences. Next, external sequences identified were assessed for the presence of explicit ABM narratives according to three specificity subtypes (single event, generic, eventless). Therapeutic outcome was assessed by pre- and post-therapy BDI standardized residual gain scores.; Results from the autobiographical memory analyses indicate that there are no significant main effects of BDI improvement, of emotional arousal, or of phase of therapy in the prediction of a generic versus single event or eventless ABM subtype.; Further, an inspection of descriptive statistics indicated that higher levels of emotional arousal are associated with single event, rather than generic ABM subtypes according to treatment type and according to BDI percentile improvement groups.; Results from the emotional arousal analyses indicate that there is a main effect of BDI improvement on emotional arousal. As BDI improvement increases, so does modal emotional arousal. In addition, three interaction effects of treatment type and phase of therapy were detected. There is a significant difference in emotional arousal between treatment types in middle phase of therapy. PE dyads express increased arousal in middle versus early phases of therapy, and CC dyads express increased arousal in late versus middle phases of therapy. These results lead us to conclude that process-experiential dyads demonstrate significantly increased emotional arousal in middle versus early phases of therapy and client-centered dyads demonstrate significantly increased emotional arousal in late versus middle phases of therapy. In addition, emotional arousal is related significantly and positively to BDI improvement for both treatment types. Therapeutic and theoretical implications of these findings and suggestions for future research directions are discussed...