Experiential congruence: Qualitative analysis of client and counsellor narrative accounts of significant events in time‐limited person‐centred therapy

The concept of congruence represents a core theoretical construct in the development of client‐centred therapy, and remains fundamental to the practice of experiential approaches to psychotherapy. This study explores the ways in which congruence is experienced during significant moments of therapy. Client and counsellor accounts of moments of congruence/incongruence were collected from six cases of person‐centred counselling, and were analysed using a method of narrative analysis. It was found that participants experienced congruence in a variety of ways, suggesting that the construct does not describe a unitary phenomenon. Congruence was experienced as simultaneously intrapsychic and relational. The effective negotiation of episodes of incongruence comprised a necessary element of effective therapy. Further research into the nature of congruence may be valuable in contributing to new understandings of how therapeutic alliances are made, broken and repaired.     

Heuristic research as a vehicle for personal and professional development

This paper reports one aspect of a more extensive narrative inquiry into how two counsellors experienced their involvement in heuristic research and the contribution it made to their personal development. The paper is located within stories of Becoming a Reflexive Researcher: Using Our Selves in Research (2004) and shows how reflexive conversations enabled participants to co‐construct meaning and create what Rosanna Hertz called ‘reflexive knowledge’ (1996).     

Informing supervision practice through research: A narrative inquiry

Intention: This study focused on questions of whether and how clients benefit from supervision. As practitioner research, the study was intended to shape the researchers’ own supervision practice. Method: The qualitative approach was based on interviews with a small number of experienced practitioners about their supervision experiences. The findings are presented in the form of reflexive stories, told by each researcher. Findings: In these stories the researchers tell how engagement with experienced practitioners’ accounts of their past supervision shaped the hopes and intentions the researchers hold for their future supervision. Implications forpractice: The stories suggest there are therapeutic benefits in an ethic of transparency that provides for practices that overtly carry stories in both directions between counselling and supervision.     

Minimizing Bias and Maximizing the Potential Strengths of Autoethnography as a Narrative Research

Up to the current time, psychology has provided very limited space for qualitative research to contribute to the discipline, even though psychology has a lot to do with subjectivity and intersubjectivity in its work. This article discusses autoethnography, which by some qualitative researchers is still being debated. The author argues that autoethnography contains strong narrative components or analysis with potential contribution to provide new understanding and to build knowledge. The article discusses criticisms against autoethnography, followed by its distinctive characteristics, which at the same time bring significant potential power. Clear guidelines and steps are needed to minimize biases and to bring about the potential power of autoethnography, and this article aims to address the issues through discussions on intersubjectivity, reflexivity, and ethics. At the end, it might be concluded that autoethnography is a method to investigate not merely the researchers, but to reveal certain phenomena and issues. Autoethnography is one good alternative among other methods that can contribute to developing understanding and knowledge through the construction of substantive theories about a particular issue.     

Life story research: A relevant methodology for counsellors and psychotherapists

Aims: This paper introduces, describes and proposes life story research as an important, relevant and appropriate contribution to counselling and psychotherapy research. It shows how narrative knowledge is created and constructed through the stories people tell about their lived experiences and explores the concept of ‘narrative knowing’ (Bruner, 1986). Methods: Drawing on life story research with people who linked their history of problematic drug use with experiences of historic trauma/abuse, the paper contributes to the ongoing discussion related to the similarities/differences between therapy and research and what we might learn from each that informs the other. Implications for practice: The paper offers narrative ideas and practices as ways of researching matters of social and psychological importance. It suggests that therapists (and counselling researchers) could learn from what participants tell us about the therapeutic value of using life story methods which one participant described as helping him to face ‘out into the world, without unduly or specifically delving into, or focusing on [my] emotional state’. This learning may be particularly relevant for therapists working with traumatised clients.     

Booming clangs and whispering ghosts: Attending to the reflexive echoes in IPA research

ABSTRACT

In this article, we propose reflexivity can be revealed through a deliberate adjunct to the interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) process. This adjunct, which we refer to as “echoes,” is a mixture of the participant’s and researcher’s words and experiences resonating with each other during the research process. We argue that explicitly recognising echoes gives a heightened sensitivity to both the researcher’s own place and being in the research, and to the other in relation to the researcher. Exploring the echoes enables the researcher to work with, rather than dismiss, his or her own presuppositions and exposes greater phenomenological sensibility toward the research subject and is-ness of that phenomenon. The purpose of this article is to outline how attending to echoes is a strategy for IPA researchers to promote and overtly journal reflexivity as central within their research practices. To exemplify how echoes can be used, practical examples from a doctoral research project are given to demonstrate how resonance can explicate reflexivity in the IPA process.     

Counselling young people: Counsellors' perspectives on ‘what works’ – An exploratory study

Aim: Counsellors who work with young people in a range of contexts know that they are not engaging with ‘mini‐adults’. The issues young people bring to counselling are often complex, challenging and wide‐ranging, as adolescents are experiencing times of turbulence and change in their physical, emotional, social and psychological development. This paper focuses on a research project undertaken with five counsellors who work with young people, and asks the question: ‘What works?’ Method: The research project is an in‐depth qualitative study into the counsellor's experience of counselling young people, using a narrative approach. Findings: Four key shared themes emerged: the significance of ‘safety’ in the relationship; building the therapeutic alliance; flexibility and integration relating to theoretical orientation; and the use of creativity. Outcomes: This paper offers counsellors the opportunity to reflect on ‘what works’ and consider the professional knowledge, which underpins their own counselling practice with young people.     

Older adults show a self-reference effect for narrative information

The self-reference effect (SRE), enhanced memory for information encoded through self-related processing, has been established in younger and older adults using single trait adjective words. We sought to examine the generality of this phenomenon by studying narrative information in these populations. Additionally, we investigated retrieval experience at recognition and whether valence of stimuli influences memory differently in young and older adults. Participants encoded trait adjectives and narratives in self-reference, semantic, or structural processing conditions, followed by tests of recall and recognition. Experiment 1 revealed an SRE for trait adjective recognition and narrative cued recall in both age groups, although the existence of an SRE for narrative recognition was unclear due to ceiling effects. Experiment 2 revealed an SRE on an adapted test of narrative recognition. Self-referential encoding was shown to enhance recollection for both trait adjectives and narrative material in Experiment 1, whereas similar estimates of recollection for self-reference and semantic conditions were found in Experiment 2. Valence effects were inconsistent but generally similar in young and older adults when they were found. Results demonstrate that the self-reference technique extends to narrative information in young and older adults and may provide a valuable intervention tool for those experiencing age-related memory decline.     

Researching stigma as an outsider: considerations for qualitative outsider research

In this article, we discuss a number of important considerations that we have encountered in the process of researching health stigma topics as “outsiders”: researchers (personally) unfamiliar with the experience or topic under study. In particular, we discuss the importance of the following: a reflective stance, challenging negative representations, flexible and sensitive recruitment strategies, validating experiences of stigma, and participant control and power. We see these points as particularly important in the context of researching stigma as outsiders, where our privilege may contribute to unhelpful, narrow, de-politicized or overly simplistic representations of particular “groups” or experiences. We share these considerations in hope of assisting other researchers to reflect on, and articulate, how they negotiate their positionings within their research and the ways in which they shape and construct the research agenda and, by implication, the people or topics under examination.     

Narrating career, positioning identity: Career identity as a narrative practice

In contrast to traditional definitions of career identity as an individual construct, this article argues for a discursive approach to career identity as a narrative practice. Career identity is conceptualized as a practice of articulating, performing and negotiating identity positions in narrating career experiences. By using the concept of positioning, this approach situates identities within particular historic, cultural and interactional contexts via the discourses and master narratives that position identity. It also leaves space for individual agency and change via the reflexive capacity of the person to modify and negotiate the competing positions available. The methodological implications are considered, and illustrated with an empirical case analysis. The contribution of the proposed approach is in offering contextualized understandings of actual practices, resources and constraints of identity construction while also allowing for in-depth analyses of the particularities of identity work and possibilities for change in careers.     

A reflection on a humanistic approach to narrative inquiry into the lived experience of women casual academics

Qualitative research is said to add flesh to the bones of quantitative data, and narrative inquiry, more specifically, is described as emotionally comforting, reassuring and validating for participants who share their stories. But little is said of the impact of the flesh, bone and emotions of the narrative inquirer on the qualitative research process. This paper explores a humanistic approach to a narrative inquiry into the lived experience of women casual academics in Australian universities, and exposes the emotional and embodied labour involved in researching others’ stories. Through reflecting in and on her practice as a narrative inquirer, the author discusses how she was affectively and ideologically motivated to investigate the lives of women casual academics and demonstrates how her heart worked in conjunction with her head when ‘handling’ the narrative data. The author finally explores how reflecting on a humanistic approach to narrative research exposes that emotional and cognitive alignment can create research ‘flow’, and that fully embodied engagement with research aligns with ‘slow’ and feminist ‘in-the-making’ scholarship where journey and outcomes emerge and cannot be pre-determined.     

A contribution to the development of a psychoanalytical methodology for research into language: A systematic study of narration as an expression of sexuality

Systematic research on language has a solid starting point in Freudian hypotheses on sexuality. This theory is the semantic ground for categorising narrations and providing a basis for the research method. The author places his research in the frame of the systematisation of the Freudian theory of substitute formations in the preconscious. He affirms that these formations are influenced in a particular way by each variant of sexuality. The author proposes an inventory (in Freudian terms) of those variants of sexuality, and he affirms that they can be detected in the discourse. Five universal scenes having the status of a canon, with specific features for each of the ways in which sexuality is manifested, make up narrations. The author describes the features of each narration and provides some examples. He also examines problems related to the use of the method (the coexistence of different variants of sexuality in a single fragment of a narration and the successive steps in the use of the method). The author briefly considers some other problems: the analysis of defences, the study of words and theoretical research. Finally, he examines the validity and reliability of the method.     

Studying psychotherapy change in narrative terms: The innovative moments method

This paper aims to describe the Innovative Moments (IM) Coding System (IMCS), an idiographic and transtheoretical methodology that allows the identification of IMs—markers of changes in the client's initial maladaptive framework of meaning—throughout psychotherapy. The present study introduces the theoretical background underlying this methodology, along with the main empirical findings resulting from former studies that have applied this tool to clinical data. The IMCS application is also detailed: the coding phases, the training steps and inter‐rater agreement measures. In order to illustrate the application of IM coding, a case study is presented. Although a partial coding was used, the results are in line with previous research. Discussion is centred on the usefulness of the IMCS for the advance of process research in psychotherapy, and the potential use of this methodology in group format.     

Living with a pituitary tumour: A narrative analysis

This study aimed to synthesise the illness narratives of individuals living with a pituitary tumour. Eight adults with a pituitary tumour were recruited from an endocrinology service in the north-west of England. A narrative methodology was adopted which investigated elements of the individual narratives such as metaphor and structure but which also aimed to produce a joint account of experience in this particular illness context by extracting themes across the stories; these are presented as part of a chronological narrative. However, the resulting group story was also analysed in terms of different types of narrative plots. The group narrative started from the recognition of symptoms and then diagnosis though treatment to post-treatment and future plans. In terms of narrative plots, one notable element of the joint narrative was the flow between the culturally dominant restitution narrative, where participants focused on treatment and recovery and the chaos narrative when recovery did not seem possible. The findings contain many elements consistent with previous research; however, the use of a celebrity figure to communicate about the illness experience and a perception that objects or individuals should not be taken at face value emerged as more novel findings.     

The client as a self‐aware agent in counselling and psychotherapy

Clients' recollections of their experiences of counselling and psychotherapy were stimulated using the technique of Interpersonal Process Recall. Their reports were analysed in terms of the grounded theory method of qualitative research. The analysis resulted in the interpretation that the core category of their experience is clients' reflexivity, or self‐awareness and agency flowing from it and returning to it. The focus of this paper is directed at the client's reflexivity in response to the counsellor's operations. Its organizing theme is that how clients respond to counsellors' operations depends on what clients desire and what they feel they can say safely. Particular desires arise from an over‐arching desire either to enter into or avoid inner experience. Moreover, the relation with self is influenced by the relationship with the therapist. This complexity makes it difficult to predict responses to non‐directive and directive counsellor performances alike. Vignettes selected from the participants' reports illustrate the theme. Implications for the practice of counselling and psychotherapy are discussed.     

Reflexive action research: Developing knowledge through practice

This paper gives an overview of different ways of conducting counselling and psychotherapy research. An approach to research is described which overcomes the research‐practice gap: reflexive action research. It is argued that this approach to research is particularly appropriate and relevant for practitioners since it draws upon skills and awareness necessary for clinical work, and can complement positivist methods of research which are already well established in the profession. The wider use of systematic clinical case studies is suggested as a means of promoting the reflexive action research approach. Further consideration of issues of validity and reliability is required on the part of those intending to apply this approach within the field of therapy research.     

Letter Writing: A Creative Tool for School Counselors Working with Adolescents

Letter writing is a therapeutic tool used in many helping professions with many populations. In school counseling, letter writing can be a useful way for school counselors to build relationships and assess student needs. Letter writing may appeal to students who are more introspective and prefer less direct forms of communication (France, Cadieax, & Allen, 1995). Evidence to support school counselors’ use of letter writing with students is underdeveloped. Citing conceptual, empirical, and theoretical support, the authors propose prompting students to write Letters About Themselves (LAT) at the beginning, middle, and end phases of the school year. Considerations for school counselors using letter writing with adolescents are explored.