Multiple code theory is a theory of psychological organization, which is rooted in current research in the areas of cognitive psychology, emotion, and development; it accounts for adaptive functions as well as pathology. The theory incorporates Freud's seminal discovery of modes of thought outside the conscious, rational mode, but recognizes three rather than two forms: subsymbolic nonverbal, symbolic nonverbal, and symbolic verbal. Computer-assisted procedures assessing these three forms are applied to verbatim transcripts of a long-term, fully recorded psychoanalysis. The measures point to the patient's central themes, allow evaluation of the analyst's interventions as facilitating or impeding the patient's explorations, and facilitate more rigorous comparison of differing clinical views. The discourse pattern in an early session was found to anticipate that in the treatment as a whole; the pattern in a later session indicates how this treatment may have become disrupted. The measures point to affiliative themes in the patient material that were not emphasized by previous researchers studying this case.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Bartlett, F.C. (1932). Remembering: A Study in Social Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2.
Bucci, W. (1984). Linking words and things: Basic processes and individual variation. Cognition17:137—153.
3.
——— (1985). Dual coding: A cognitive model for psychoanalytic research. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association33:571—607.
4.
——— (1988). Converging evidence for emotion structures: Theory and method. In Psychoanalytic Process Research Strategies, ed. H. Dahl, H. Kaechele, & H. Thomae.New York: Springer-Verlag, pp. 29—50.
5.
——— (1989). A reconstruction of Freud's tally argument: A program for psychoanalytic research. Psychoanalytic Inquiry9:249—281.
6.
——— (1993). The development of emotional meaning in free association . In Hierarchical Conceptions in Psychoanalysis, ed. J. Gedo & A. Wilson.New York: Guilford Press, pp. 3—47.
7.
——— (1995). The power of the narrative: A multiple code account . In Emotion, Disclosure and Health, ed. J.W. Pennebaker. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association , pp. 71—92.
8.
——— (in press a). Emotion structures, narrative structures and the CCRT . In The CCRT Method and Its Discoveries, ed. L. Luborsky, H. Kaechele , R. Dahlbender, & L. Diguer.
9.
——— (in press, b). Psychoanalysis and Cognitive Science: A Multiple Code Theory. New York: Guilford Press .
10.
——— Kabasakalian, R., & The Ra Research Group (1992 ). Instructions for Scoring Referential Activity (RA) in Transcripts of Spoken Narrative Texts. Ulm, Germany: Ulmer Textbank.
11.
——— & Miller, N. (1993). Primary process analogue: The Referential Activity (RA) measure. In Psychodynamic Treatment Research , ed. N. Miller, L. Luborsky, J. Barber, & J. Docherty . New York: Basic Books, pp. 387—406.
12.
Dahl, H. (1978). A new psychoanalytic model of motivation: Emotions as appetites and messages. Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought1:373—408.
13.
Eagle, M.N. (1984). Recent Developments in Psychoanalysis: A Critical Evaluation. New York: McGraw-Hill .
14.
Edelman, G.M. (1989). The Remembered Present: A Biological Theory of Consciousness. New York: Basic Books .
15.
Emde, R.N. (1983). The affective core. Paper presented at the Second World Congress of Infant Psychiatry, Cannes, France.
16.
Fertuck, E. (1996). The validity of computerized measures of language structure among anaclitic and introjective patients. Paper presented at the meetings of the Eastern Psychological Association, Philadelphia.
17.
Friedman, R., Bucci, W., Epstein, A., & Udoff, A. (1994). Maternalism: A New View of Female Sexuality. Symposium presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis, Philadelphia.
18.
Holt, R.R. (1985). The current status of psychoanalytic theory. Psychoanalytic Psychology2:289—315.
19.
Jones, E. (1995). How will psychoanalysis study itself? In Research in Psychoanalysis: Process, Development, Outcome. ed. T. Shapiro & R.N. Emde.Madison, CT: International Universities Press, pp. 91—108.
20.
——— & Windholz, M. (1990). The psychoanalytic case study: Toward a method for systematic inquiry. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association38:985—1015.
21.
Kris, E. (1956). On some vicissitudes of insight in psychoanalysis . International Journal of Psycho-Analysis37:445—455.
22.
Luborsky, L., & Crits-Cristoph, P. (1988). The assessment of transference by the CCRT method. In Psychoanalytic Process Research Strategies, ed. H. Dahl, H. Kaechele, & H. Thomae. New York: Springer-Verlag , pp. 99—108.
23.
Mcclelland, J.L., Rumelhart, D.E., & Hinton, G.E. (1989). The appeal of Parallel Distributed Processing . In Parallel Distributed Processing: Explorations in the Microstructure of Cognition: Volume 1. Foundations, ed. D.E. Rumelhart, J.L. McClelland, and the PDP Research Group.Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 3—44.
24.
Mergenthaler, E. (1985). Textbank Systems: Computer Science Applied in the Field of Psychoanalysis. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.
25.
——— (1992). Emotion/abstractness as indicators of “hot spots” in psychotherapy transcripts. Paper presented to the Society for Psychotherapy Research, 23rd Annual International Meeting, Berkeley, CA.
26.
——— (1996). Emotional-abstraction patterns in verbatim protocols: A new way of describing psychotherapeutic processes. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology64:1306—1315.
27.
——— & Bucci, W. (1993). Computer-assisted procedures for analyzing verbal data in psychotherapy research. Symposium presented at the Society for Psychotherapy Research, 24th Annual International Meeting , Pittsburgh.
28.
Perry, JC (1993). Defenses and their effects. In Psychodynamic Treatment Research: A Handbookfor Clinical Practice, ed. N.E. Miller, L. Luborsky, J.P. Barber, & J.P. Docherty.New York: Basic Books , pp. 274—306.
29.
Rumelhart, D.E. (1989). The architecture of mind: A connectionist approach . In Foundations of Cognitive Science, ed. Michael A. Posner.Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 133—159.
30.
Samstag, N. (1996). Meta-analysis of Referential Activity. Dissertation Abstract International.
31.
Strachey, J. (1934). The nature of the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis . In Psychoanalytic Clinical Interpretation , ed. L. Paul. New York: Free Press, 1963.
32.
Udoff, A. (1995). Maternalism in Psychoanalysis: An Empirical Study . Dissertation Abstract International.
33.
Weiss, J. (1995). Empirical studies of the psychoanalytic process . In Research in Psychoanalysis: Process, Development, Outcome , ed. T. Shapiro & R.N. Emde.Madison, CT: International Universities Press, pp. 7—30.
34.
Sampson, H.The Mount Zion Psychotherapy Research Group ( 1986). The Psychoanalytic Process: Theory, Clinical Observation, and Empirical Research. New York: Guilford Press.
