Representing narrative process in therapy: Qualitative analysis of a single case

Abstract

In recent years, there has been increasing interest in an approach which views counselling and psychotherapy as being concerned with giving clients opportunities to articulate, examine and re-author aspects of their life-stories. However, most of the literature associated with this approach has been based on observations of clinical practice, and there is a need to develop more systematic research in this area. The present study uses qualitative methods to identify and categorize different types of narrative events occurring in therapy discourse. A representation is offered of the process by which experience is narrativized during therapy. The data for this analysis is drawn from an intensive study of one session of person-centred counselling. The issues involved in applying this method of qualitative analysis are discussed, and the implications of these findings for research and practice are outlined.