The primary means for psychotherapy interaction is language. Since talk-in-interaction is accomplished and rendered interpretable by the systematic use of linguistic resources, this study focuses on one of the central issues in psychotherapy, namely agency, and the ways in which linguistic resources, person references in particular, are used for constructing different types of agency in psychotherapy interaction. The study investigates therapists’ responses to turns where the client complains about a third party. It focuses on the way therapists’ responses distribute experience and agency between the therapist and the client by comparing responses formulated with the zero-person (a formulation that lacks a grammatical subject, that is, a reference to the agent) to responses formulated with a second person singular pronoun that refers to the client. The study thus approaches agency as situated, dynamic and interactional: an agent is a social unit whose elements (flexibility and accountability) are distributed in the therapist-client interaction. The data consist of 70 audio-recorded sessions of cognitive psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, and the method of analysis is conversation analysis and interactional linguistics. The main findings are that therapists use the zero-person for two types of responses: affiliating and empathetic responses that distribute the emotional experience between the client and the therapist, and responses that invite clients to interpret their own experiences, thereby distributing control and responsibility to the clients. In contrast, the second person references are used for re-constructing the client’s past history. The conclusion is that therapists use the zero-person for both immediate emotional work and interpretative co-work on the client’s experiences. The study suggests that therapists’ use of the zero-person does not necessarily attribute “weak agency” to the client but instead might strengthen the clients’ agency in the sense of control and responsibility in the long term.

中文翻译：

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在治疗互动中的分配机构和经验：治疗师对投诉的回应中的人称

心理治疗互动的主要手段是语言。由于互动交谈是通过系统地使用语言资源来实现的，并且可以解释，因此本研究着重于心理治疗的中心问题之一，即代理，以及使用语言资源（尤其是人称）的方式来解决这一问题。在心理治疗互动中建立不同类型的代理机构。该研究调查了治疗师对委托人抱怨第三方的转弯的反应。它着重于通过比较零人制定的回应（缺乏语法主题，即对代理的引用）与零个人制定的回应，治疗师的回应在治疗师和客户之间分配经验和代理的方式。指代客户的第二人称单数代词。因此，该研究将代理人视为处于处境，动态和互动的代理人：代理人是一个社会单位，其要素（灵活性和责任制）分布在治疗师与客户之间的互动中。数据包括70场音频记录的认知心理治疗和心理分析会议，分析方法是对话分析和交互语言学。主要发现是，治疗师使用零个人进行两种类型的反应：从属和移情反应，在服务对象和治疗师之间分配情感体验；以及响应，邀请服务对象解释自己的经历，从而将控制和责任分配给客户。相反，第二人称参考用于重建客户的过去历史。结论是，治疗师使用零人来进行即时的情感工作和对客户体验的解释性合作。研究表明，治疗师对零人的使用并不一定将“弱代理”归因于服务对象，而是从长期的控制和责任感上可以增强服务对象的代理。