Emotional processes in psychotherapy: evidence across therapeutic modalities

This article briefly reviews recent process research on emotion in humanistic, cognitive, behavioural and psychodynamic psychotherapies. Cognitive therapy has traditionally shown less interest in emotional processes than the other therapies, but the interest of the others has not always borne fruit in empirical research. At the present time there is an interest in emotion research in therapy that cuts across all therapeutic modalities. Emotional processing and depth of experiencing, two heavily‐researched emotion process categories of the behaviourists and humanists respectively, have been shown to have a robust association with outcome. There is accumulating evidence that both the in‐session activation of specific, relevant emotions and the cognitive exploration and elaboration of the significance and meaning of these emotions are important for therapeutic change. Further research on emotional processes in psychotherapy is required.