Abstract

Objective
Major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with ineffective affect regulation. Vocal data can shed light on communication and expression during psychotherapy and provide high-resolution data for the study of affective arousal dynamics. Computerized vocal analyses were used to examine the extent to which intrapersonal and interpersonal vocal-arousal dynamics were linked to session outcomes and whether a session’s dampening as compared to an amplification arousal trajectory would moderate this association.
Method:
Data from 30 clients treated for MDD by nine therapists were analyzed. A total of 9,324 vocal arousal data points were extracted from the working phases of 137 therapy sessions. The clients reported their well-being levels before and after each session on the Outcome Rating Scale.
Results
Vocal-analysis revealed both intrapersonal regulation (towards one's baseline) and …

Date

July 23, 2025

Authors

Adar Paz, Eshkol Rafaeli, Eran Bar-Kalifa, Eva Gilboa-Schectman, Sharon Gannot, Shrikanth Narayanan, Dana Atzil-Slonim

Journal

Psychotherapy Research

Pages

1-14

Publisher

Routledge