Role of action-oriented inter actions in different therapies - Process control and relevance of success

Motivational and volitional competencies of action oriented self regulation (sensu Kuhl) are assumed to promote desired psychotherapeutic changes and outcomes. Findings of Hartung und Schulte (1991) supported this for agoraph obic patients treated with cognitively prepared exposure. The predictive po wer of increasing action orientation was particularly strong, if a coding s ystem was used categorizing patient's and therapist's verbal expressions re garding their actualized attentional focus. We intended to study the genera lizability of these findings to different diagnoses and treatments. Hartung 's coding system was applied to selected session segments of three groups: obesity patients/self-management interventions, university clinic outpatien ts/Brief Therapy, and severely depressed inpatients/cognitive behavior ther apy. Action orientation increased in the course of all treatments. Therapis ts and patients responded to the attentional focus actualized in the precee ding expression of their partner. Time and intensity of these changes and t heir correlation with outcome criteria varied between the groups and suppor ted the validity and relevance of these analyses.