Disturbances and silences in the patient's speech in psychotherapy.

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Abstract
"Linguistic'' measures of the patient''s anxiety in therapeutic interviews can be useful in several areas of research. ... On empirical and theoretical grounds, speech disturbance and silence seem to be expressive attributes that are useful as anxiety indices. . . . Data from 2 cases show that the 2 measures discriminate "something" between-sessions and within-sessions for a given patient. Motivational phase judgments have been proposed as useful criteria for validating the Speech-Disturbance Ratio and Silence Quotient as anxiety measures. Detailed knowledge of the dynamic context of the interview is necessary to make such judgments of criteria since manifest content is of limited value in this regard. . . . Preliminary results of the proposed validation procedure indicate that the present approach is fruitful.".