What did you study?
Using a mixed-methods approach, I investigated the relationship between therapists’ bodily sensations and the therapeutic alliance. Furthermore, I studied how therapists used their own bodily signals as a source of information in clinical work and examined what occurred in the therapists’ autonomic nervous system during significant moments in psychotherapy sessions. The dissertation brings together research on common factors in psychotherapy, multimodal data, psychophysiology, and qualitative change process research.
Combining these perspectives enabled us to understand interoception as a multidimensional phenomenon. Therapists’ interoception – that is, their ability to perceive signals originating from within their own bodies – was studied both as a characteristic measurable through an objective experimental setting, referred to as interoceptive accuracy, and as a subjective, reflective capacity to recognise and describe bodily sensations, referred to as interoceptive awareness.
What were the results of your research or what is its main outcome?
The study found a positive correlation between therapists’ interoception and their experience of the therapeutic alliance. Furthermore, I identified five qualitatively distinct ways in which therapists used bodily information in therapeutic work. Of these, I would highlight the role of bodily sensations in how therapists recognised significant moments during a session.
How can the findings be applied? What new insights did the study bring to this topic?
By combining subjective experience, objective measures and physiological data, this dissertation builds bridges between the bodily and the verbal, and between research and clinical practice. It demonstrates that interoception is an important part of understanding the therapeutic alliance.
The public examination of the doctoral dissertation Psychotherapists’ Interoceptive Accuracy and Awareness – Connecting Therapeutic Alliance, Psychophysiology, and the Paradigm of Significant Moments, by Satu Halonen, MA (Psych), will take place at the University of Jyväskylä on Saturday 12 December 2026, starting at 12 noon in Auditorium 2 of the Agora building. The opponent will be Professor Lidia Del Piccolo (University of Verona), and the custos will be Associate Professor Virpi-Liisa Kykyri (University of Jyväskylä). The language of the public examination will be English.
The dissertation is available to read online.
