Therapists’ Working Models of Crying - An Integrative Framework

This repository provides the full integrative category system developed in the study “Crying in Psychotherapy: Catalyst, Byproduct, or Resistance? A Qualitative Exploration of Therapists’ Working Models Across Theoretical Orientations.” The framework synthesizes therapists’ working models of crying in psychotherapy across psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, and systemic orientations. It integrates assumptions about the meaning and functions of crying with associated therapeutic interventions and organizes them into a hierarchical system of domains, meta-categories, and subcategories. The system serves as a conceptual and heuristic framework for qualitative coding, theory development, and future process–outcome research on emotional crying in psychotherapy.