MAIN PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOTHERAPEUTIC DISCOURSE ANALYSIS: LINGUISTIC ASPECT
Authors: Ольга Юріївна Качмар  
Published: April 2019

Introduction. The article deals with the linguistic aspect of the basic principles ofpsychotherapeutic discourse analysis. Research on discourse is one of the priorities in modernlinguistics. Integrative processes in science generally are based on the expansionism ofanthropocentric linguistics and they contribute to the formation of a cognitive-communicativeparadigm of knowledge, where discursive activity is seen in the light of internal mentalprocesses. Psychotherapeutic interaction of both participants in the process – the therapist andthe patient – is interpreted as a discursive practice that requires a thorough linguistic analysisto identify the motivational, cognitive and communicative aspects of the speech activity of bothparticipants in the psychotherapeutic session, and that determines the relevance of our research.The purpose of the article is to highlight the content and linguistic specificity ofthe main principles of psychotherapeutic discourse analysis.The methodology for the analysis of psychotherapeutic discourse involves the definitionand description of the communicative strategies implemented in the discourse, basedon expansionism, anthropocentrism, functionalism and explanatory. The basic principles of psychotherapeutic discourse analysis do not depend on a specific psychotherapeutic school,since the isolation of tactical and strategic potential is determined by the specificity ofpsychotherapeutic communication, according to the distribution of communicative roles andpositions of the participants in the therapeutic process, their expectations, the dynamics oflanguage initiatives, message sequencing, listening and understatement.As a result of the research, the role of the correlation between the personality’s worldviewand his psychological problems in the process of production of statements is determined.The communication in psychotherapeutic discourse is described in terms of a linguistic formof purposefulsocial activity. The article establishes the dynamics of linguistic means for realizationof the basic principles of psychotherapeutic discourse analysis with the description of tacticaland strategic potential.Summing up, the author arrives at the following conclusions: 1) the semantic space ofthe language, objectified in the system units of the linguistic worldview, and the nature ofcommunication are mutually determined by the type of discourse within which the communicationis carried out, and the structure of language personalities; 2) interpretation of communicationduring psychotherapeutic sessions is based on considering the discourse as the social interaction.Such an interpretation is tied to each specific pragmatic situation and the mental processes ofthe therapist and the client, verbalized in tactical and strategic potential; 3) along with verballyexpressed communicative strategies and tactics, the revealed understatement plays a constitutiverole in the analysis of psychotherapeutic discourse, i.e., it points to the important componentsof the internal experience of the subject. The patient's speech often includes hushing up thatcorresponds to deeply displaced layers of the unconscious.