The therapeutic collaboration in dropout cases of narrative therapy: an exploratory study

With this study, we aimed to describe the interaction within the therapeutic dyads
involved in dropout cases of narrative therapy, once the quality of interaction in therapy
appears to constitute a critical factor in clients’ decisions regarding its discontinuation.
Seven dropout cases of narrative therapy, which were conducted by the same therapist,
were analysed using the Therapeutic Collaboration Coding System. The coding
procedure required two trained and independent judges along with an auditing process.
Overall, the findings demonstrated that independent of the clients’ responses, the
therapist tended to increase the challenging interventions and decrease the supporting
interventions over time. In turn, the clients oscillated between having experiences of
safety and experiences of intolerable risk. The results will be discussed in terms of their
theoretical and empirical relevance in relation to clinical implications.
Con este estudio se ha pretendido describir la interacción entre díadas terapéuticas en
casos de abandono en terapia narrativa, una vez que la calidad de la interacción
terapéutica parece ser un factor crítico en las decisiones de los clientes para abandonar
sus procesos. Siete casos de abandono en terapia narrativa, acompañados por el mismo
terapeuta, fueron analizados utilizando el Sistema de Codificación de la Colaboración
Terapéutica. El procedimiento ha incluido la codificación de todas las sesiones de los
casos por dos jueces independientes con formación sobre el sistema, así como su
posterior auditoría. En general, los resultados mostraron que, independiente de las
respuestas de los clientes, el terapeuta ha tendido a aumentar sus intervenciones de
desafío y a reducir las de apoyo, a lo largo del tiempo. A su vez, los clientes oscilaron
en presentar experiencias de seguridad y experiencias de riesgo intolerable. Los
resultados serán debatidos de acuerdo con su relevancia teórica y empírica y sus
implicaciones clínicas.
This work was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the PhD Grant with the reference SFRH/BD/82583/2011. This study was conducted at Psychology Research Centre (PSI/01662), University of MInho, and supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education through national funds, and co-financed by FEDER through COMPETE2020
under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (POCI-01-0145-FEDER007653)
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion