Felton, Tiarna (2015) Exploration of Affiliation, Alignment, Disaffiliation, and Misalignment: A Discursive Psychology Approach. Honours thesis, University of Southern Queensland. (Unpublished)
Abstract
This study explored how affiliation, alignment, disaffiliation, and misalignment are coproduced between psychologists and their clients. Affiliation, alignment, disaffiliation, and misalignment are interactional activities, as it is in the therapeutic interaction that this work gets done. However to date, little research has focused on how these are interactionally achieved, this study aims to address this gap. The data used in this study was archival data from the Clinical Health Communication Talk Bank (Talk Bank). The Talk Bank is a collection of audio and video recordings of psychological consultations between psychologists and their clients. Two sessions from one client- psychologist dyad were used in the current study. Discursive Psychology (DP) was the metatheoretical framework adopted in this study with Conversation Analysis (CA) being utilised as the analytic tool. Findings highlight the way in which the client and psychologist co-create affiliation and alignment, and disaffiliation and misalignment. Three key findings were identified. These being; 1) in order to achieve affiliation, affective stance is required, 2) affiliation and alignment can be successfully re-established following an incorrect formulation or interpretation from the psychologist through allowing the client space and time to construct a divergent view, and 3) psychologist agreement and affiliative utterances allows the client to build a divergent view and works to achieve affiliation and alignment. These findings can be utilised to help psychologists and other mental health professionals recognise and maintain affiliation and alignment, and better work to resolve instances of disaffiliation and misalignment.
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| Item Type: | Thesis (Non-Research) (Honours) |
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| Item Status: | Live Archive |
| Additional Information: | Current UniSQ staff and students can request access to this thesis. Please email research.repository@unisq.edu.au with a subject line of SEAR thesis request and provide: Name of the thesis requested and Your name and UniSQ email address |
| Faculty/School / Institute/Centre: | Historic - Faculty of Health, Engineering and Sciences - School of Psychology and Counselling (1 Jan 2015 - 31 Dec 2021) |
| Supervisors: | Andrea Lamont-Mills |
| Qualification: | Bachelor of Science (Honours) |
| Date Deposited: | 25 Sep 2025 01:40 |
| Last Modified: | 25 Sep 2025 01:40 |
| Fields of Research (2008): | 17 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 1799 Other Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 179999 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences not elsewhere classified |
| Fields of Research (2020): | 52 PSYCHOLOGY > 5299 Other psychology > 529999 Other psychology not elsewhere classified |
| URI: | https://sear.unisq.edu.au/id/eprint/52314 |
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