Process-focused Conversation Analysis: Proposing an Approach for Intervention and Assessment the Field of Counseling and Psychotherapy with People Suffering from Depression

Purpose: The present research was conducted with the aim of determining the position of questioning, skills, and techniques in counseling of clients with depression using a process-focused conversation analysis method. Methods: The research method was of qualitative type, with single-subject design. Two persons with depression referring to Sepand Counseling Center in Ardabil were selected using convenient sampling method and were treated with counseling and psychotherapy using the meta-theory method. The events of each session were written completely and then, therapist's reactions for each client after labeling was entered in the form of the change equation based on the regression analysis model. Findings: The results showed that it is easy to extract the change equation in terms of questions, skills, and techniques from the psychotherapy process and objectify the change equation using the symbolic system. On the other hand, the level of contribution to variance for each of the effective components dependent on the therapist's responses was determined. Conclusions: based on the formulation of the change equation, the supervision of the psychotherapy would be simplified; a wide range of counseling and psychotherapy events can be found, such as the cognitive complexity of the clients and the extent of the therapist's or client's activity.