"Y, what do you think about what X just said?" Conversation analysis of stance-eliciting questions in open dialogue network meetings.

Open dialogue is a resource-oriented approach to mental health, which aims to help those involved in a crisis situation support each other and engage in dialogue. While language use in open dialogue is generally characterized as being open-ended, nondirective, and nonevaluating on the professionals' side, little is known about the specific conversational features. The aim of this study was to analyze the interactional functions of a stance-eliciting question of the form: "Y, what do you think about what X just said?" We used conversation analysis (CA) to examine this in eight video-recorded Danish open dialogue network meetings. In CA, stance involves expressions of attitude, affect, or judgments about people or events. We describe the interactional functions of these stance-eliciting questions and discuss how clinicians used them as a tool for accomplishing neutrality. The findings can be used to gain a more nuanced understanding of open dialogue psychotherapeutic practices.

Disclosure of mental health problems in general practice: The gradual emergence of latent topics and resources for achieving their consideration.

Common mental disorders often go undetected in primary care. Sharpening general practitioners' (GPs') attention to potential signs thereof is therefore crucial. This conversation-analytic study arises from the observation that the consideration of psychological problems in new-concern visits can be achieved by way of 'gradual topic emergence'. This entails that the problem is not presented directly, but adjunct to somatic symptoms, and is hinted at by way of generic, ambiguous complaints, and furthermore by expressions of frustration and uncertainty and talk about lifeworld problems. It is argued that these materials are 'trouble-premonitory, alerting the GP to the presence of an underlying problem that can then be addressed throughfurther inquiry. The patient logic behind this approach is to assure the GP's recipiency and thus ratification of the problem's medical legitimacy. It allows the patient to introduce a potentially delicate problem 'off the record, thus guarding the patient against the loss of face that could resultfrom no uptake by the GP. The results of the study point to the importance of GPs being receptive to such interactional clues to psychological problems provided by patients.