The emergence of innovative moments in narrative therapy for depression: exploring therapist and client contributions

According to the narrative framework, clients seek therapeutic help due to the
constricting nature of problematic self-narratives and psychotherapy should contribute to
the elaboration of narrative novelties and innovative self-narratives. We term these narrative
novelties as innovative moments (IMs) and developed the Innovative Moments Coding
System (IMCS) to study them in psychotherapeutic discourse, differentiating five types
of IMs: action, reflection, protest, reconceptualization and performing change IMs. Previous
research studies using the IMCS with narrative therapy, emotion-focused therapy and
client-centered therapy show that action, reflection and protest IMs appear in good (GO)
and also in poor outcome (PO) cases while, reconceptualization and performing change
IMs are more typical of good outcome (GO) cases. In this study, we will address how these
IMs are co-constructed in the therapeutic dialogue through the discussion of three particular
forms of IMs’ emergence in psychotherapy. These forms of emergence refer to different
degrees of client and therapist participation: (1) IMs produced by the therapist and accepted
by the client; (2) IMs prompted by the therapist and developed by the client; and
(3) IMs spontaneously produced by the client. The exploratory analysis of three initial,
three middle and three final sessions of contrasting cases (a GO and a PO) of narrative
therapy for depression showed that IMs produced by the therapist were more associated to
the PO case, while IMs prompted by the therapist were more associated to the GO case.
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion