This study is aimed at elucidating the meaning of therapeutic change within the context of a
person's life story. The author believes that delineation of therapeutic change within this context
may help to overcome the incongruence among counselling theory, research, practice, and the
experience of counselling clients. After reviewing the traditional literature on therapy outcome
and change, the new options coming from narrative approaches were considered. The qualitative
method of a multiple-case study was chosen as the most appropriate for the posed question.
Three participants in this project completed either individual (1 woman) or group (1 woman and
1 man) therapy, and believed that they achieved a substantial therapeutic change; all of them had
written their autobiography in the beginning of their therapy. In each case study, the
autobiography was interpreted, the interpretation refined in the Life story interview, and
validated in another interview with the participant. Then the Current life interview and the
Interview with a significant other were conducted, and the Portrait of change was construed; again, the product was reviewed and validated with the participant. All interpretations, and the
videotapes of interviews were reviewed by two independent judges. The three Portraits of change
were mutually compared, and the working delineation of the therapeutic change within the
context of a person's life story was abstracted from this comparison. In all 3 cases, the change
seemed to be connected with a substantial reinterpretation of the individual's life story. This
reinterpretation seemed to be based on the change of the individual's fundamental beliefs about
self and others in-the-world, on greater and more flexible acceptance of self and others in their
relational complexity, and on positioning one's Self as an agentic hero in his or her own life
story. These changes were also reflected in the genre, the formal structure, and the explanatory
reasoning of the new stories the participants told about their current lives, and lived by. The
limitations of this study, and the implications of the findings for counselling theory, practice, and
future research are discussed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/8685 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Adler, Michal |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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