Underneath The Symbolic in Psychotherapy: Vocal Rhythm Coordination and Its Relations with the Working Alliance in Short-Term Psychodynamic Treatment

Author

• Oded Hadar, CUNY City CollegeFollow

Date of Award

2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Sasha Rudenstine

Keywords

vocal, rhythm, procedural, coordination, psychotherapy, alliance

Abstract

The capacity to implicitly predict and coordinate with both one's own and one's partner's procedural actions has been well-documented in infant-mother and adult-adult research. Furthermore, this capacity has been empirically linked to key developmental outcomes, including attachment security, cognitive development, and interpersonal functioning. However, less is known about how this innate capacity manifests in the specific context of adult psychotherapy and whether it relates to patients' experience of the therapeutic relationship. The present study focused on one mode of procedural action, vocal rhythm coordination (VRC), and examined patterns of patients' self- and interactive contingency both within sessions and across phases of treatment. Additionally, this study explored the relationship between those patterns and the working alliance (WA), a central construct in psychotherapy research. Selected sessions from 18 short-term (maximum 20 sessions) psychodynamically oriented adult psychotherapy treatments were analyzed using the Automated Vocal Transaction Analyzer (AVTA) to extract microanalytic data pertaining to patients' switching pause durations. Multi-level time-series analyses were then applied to assess patterns of self- and interactive contingency. Quantitative methods were used to examine the relationship between patients' scores on the WAI-Short Revised (WAI-SR), a patient-report measure of the working alliance, and patterns of vocal rhythm coordination. Results demonstrated overall consistency in VRC patterns both within sessions and between the beginning and ending phases of treatment. This pattern of consistency was evident for both self- and interactive contingency. Descriptive data revealed that sessions beginning with midrange degrees of interactive contingency demonstrated the highest rates of within-session consistency across treatments. Furthermore, a subtle tendency toward increased self-contingency was observed during the ending phase of treatment. Finally, for both contingency types, within-session consistency in degrees of vocal rhythm coordination was associated with higher WAI scores compared to sessions demonstrating either an increase or a decrease in degrees of coordination. Findings are discussed in the context of their relevance to psychotherapy research and clinical practice, and directions for future research are proposed.

Recommended Citation

Hadar, Oded, "Underneath The Symbolic in Psychotherapy: Vocal Rhythm Coordination and Its Relations with the Working Alliance in Short-Term Psychodynamic Treatment" (2026). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cc_etds_theses/1326