Theory-building case studies of counselling and psychotherapy

Abstract

In addition to their potential for healing, psychotherapy and counselling offer extraordinary opportunities to observe human experience and behaviour. I suggest practitioners have expertise in and daily access to the phenomena that theories of counselling and psychotherapy seek to explain. Practitioners’ clinical experience can be accumulated and shared through theory-building case study research. This article summarizes the logic of theory-building case studies and offers practical suggestions for conducting case study research.

Keywords:

• Case studies
• theory-building
• research methods

Acknowledgements

I thank Carol Humphreys, James Mosher, Katerine Osatuke, Darren Del Castillo, Jonathan Fishman, Jacob Goldsmith, Corrine Hoener and Hugo Shielke for comments on drafts of this article.