2010 Volume 8 Issue 1 Pages 1-9
The present study analyzed the relationship between body movements of clients and counselors, based on a video analysis of client-counselor dialogues in initial counseling sessions. Four 50-minute psychotherapeutic counseling sessions were analyzed, of which two were negatively evaluated (low evaluation group) and two were positively evaluated (high evaluation group). In addition, two 50-minute ordinary advice sessions between two high school teachers and the clients from the high evaluation group were analyzed. All sessions represented role-playing. The intensity of participants' body movement was measured using a video-based analysis. The temporal relationship between body movements of clients and counselors/teachers was analyzed using a moving cross-correlation with time lags between the two time series of body movement intensity. The results revealed: (1) a tendency of the counselors' body movements to occur with a 0.5-second delay as compared to those of the clients all across the 50-minute sessions; (2) this tendency was particularly notable in the case of the highly evaluated sessions; (3) this tendency was not observed in the advise sessions, the two sessions displaying inconsistent patterns.
