A comparison of core conflictual relationship themes before psychotherapy and during early sessions.

This report shows (a) that the Core Conflictual Relationship Theme (CCRT) can be rated reliably either from therapy sessions or from a special pretreatment interview in a group of depressed patients, and (b) that the CCRTs obtained before treatment are similar to the CCRTs extracted from the early sessions of brief dynamic psychotherapy. The data suggest that, at least in the early sessions of treatment, the therapist's influence did not significantly alter the patients' CCRTs.