La necesidad existencial en el proceso de transformación emocional en la terapia focalizada en la emoción en duelo complicado

Abstract

The main aim of this research was to study the role of existential need in the process of emotional transformation in the framework of Emotion-Focused Therapy within the issue of complicated grief in the context of the empty chair for unfinished business. Though the systematic and focused study of existential need and its processing is a key component of the model, it has not been carried out so far. Thus, this paper aimed, first of all, to outline a rational-empirical model concerning the processing of existential need and its involvement in the process of emotional transformation. In order to do that, the study 1 was conducted (outlined in Chapter 5). This study 1 also resulted in the Measure of Existential Need Processing in Emotion-Focused Therapy (which allows for the evaluation of the presence of the components in the therapy sessions). For this purpose, the Task Analysis method (Greenberg, 2007) was used as a resource to hypothesise the elements of the need processing model in the therapy session and their optimal order (study 1, Chapter 5), as well as to evaluate, refine and finally contrast the capacity of the final model and it¿s components to lead to therapeutic change and resolution of the empty chair task (study 2, Chapter 6). Similarly, sequence analyses of the different components of the existential need model were also conducted to establish their prototypical order in the processing of existential need (study 2, Chapter 6). In this study 2 Existential Need Processing Scale was also developed. For this purpose, a sample of 30 people experiencing complicated grief was taken, with whom 3 sessions were held in telematic format (videoconference). They were evaluated three times: before the intervention, one week, and two months afterwards. This research also sought to evaluate the potency of the empty chair intervention for unfinished business with a complicated grief sample. This is another of the main contributions of this research. This task is mentioned by various authors for its ability to generate clinical change in complicated grief (Boelen et al., 2021; Bryant et al., 2014; Glickman et al., 2016; Holland et al., 2018). However, this task had not been studied yet in complicated grief. Significant clinical changes were found both at one week and at two months, being greater at two months, both in the successful sessions where the resolution of the empty chair task was accomplished (obtaining better results) and with the sessions in general, the latter analysis having an effect size of around d = 1, thus offering some evidence of this intervention in the telematic format (videoconference) and in complicated grief. Finally, we can say that the Existential Need Processing Model in Emotion-Focused Therapy predicts change in clinical outcomes. The more advanced the components are (e.g., Differentiated Relational Existential Need Expressed), the more consistent this prediction of clinical change is and the greater its presence in successful sessions and its relationship to the resolution of the empty chair task, thus confirming our hypothesis. We have also observed a certain sequentiality which indicates a progressive differentiation and expression in the relational need that, when achieved, is consistently more related to change.