FIND: A Feedback Initiated Narrative Development Protocol to Elicit Resources in Psychotherapy (original) (raw)

How Do Self-Narratives Change During Psychotherapy? A Review of Innovative Moments Research

Journal of Systemic Therapies, 2017

In the past decade, researching what we refer to as innovative moments (IMs) has produced interesting results with regard to change in self-narratives during psychotherapy. Building upon the concept of "unique outcomes" (White & Epston, 1990) and "exceptions" in therapy (de Shazer, 1991), a coding system was developed for tracking moments of innovation in clients' narratives throughout the therapy process. In the present article, we review the trajectory of this research, highlighting four main issues. First, we briefly comment on its development and on some of its core theoretical assumptions. Second, we introduce the reader to the basics of the coding system, describing the different types of IMs. Third, we review the main research outcomes, and some preliminary conclusions are drawn with regard to patterns of narrative change. Finally, the practical implications of the findings are discussed. We consequently outline some tips to assist therapists in developing a greater sensitivity to self-narrative change. How does change occur in psychotherapy? These six simple words contain what probably has become the main and everlasting enigma of psychotherapy practice

Self-Narrative Reconstruction in Psychotherapy: Looking at Different Levels of Narrative Development

Culture & Psychology, 2010

This commentary focuses on Cross’s (2010, this issue) work as an opportunity to elaborate upon how to study narrative-dialogical processes from the perspective of complexity. We start by elaborating on the notion that narrative development is a multidimensional activity that extends through several organizational levels and on the limitations of conventional research methods for narrative analysis. Following this, we focus on our experience of research on narrative change in psychotherapy in order to exemplify this point. From our perspective, clients’ problematic self-narratives can be challenged by the emergence of innovative ways of thinking and behaving that the client narrates during the therapeutic conversation (innovative moments or i-moments). Our results suggest that the reconstruction of a person’s self-narrative depends on the structure of relations between i-moments, rather than on the mere accumulation of i-moments. Therefore, we are particularly interested in looking at how clusters of i-moments create a pattern, which we call protonarrative. We are interested in the dynamic processes between former self-narrative, i-moments, protonarratives and new emergent self-narratives. Hence, we have developed a research strategy that allows tracking these different levels of narrative development in psychotherapy. In the remaining of our commentary we will briefly present our research strategy.

Innovative moments and poor outcome in narrative therapy

Counselling and …, 2011

Aims: To analyse a poor outcome case of narrative therapy with a woman victim of intimate violence. Method: The Innovative Moments Coding System: version 1 was applied to all sessions to track the innovative moments (i-moments) in the therapeutic process. IÁmoments are the narrative details that occur in psychotherapeutic conversations that are outside the influence of the problematic narrative. This research aims to describe the processes involved in the stability of meanings in psychotherapy through a dialogical approach to meaning making. Findings: Contrarily to what usually occurs in good outcome cases, re-conceptualization i-moments are absent. Moreover, two specific types of i-moments emerged with higher duration: reflection and protest. Qualitative analysis showed that the potential meanings of these i-moments were surpassed by a return to the problematic narrative. Conclusion: The therapeutic stability seems to be maintained by a systematic return to the problematic narrative after the emergence of novelties. This process was referred from a dialogical perspective as a mutual in-feeding of voices, one that emerges in the i-moment and another one that supports the problematic narrative, which is maintained by an oscillation between these two types of voices during therapy.