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The process of enabling change: a study of therapist interventions in family therapy
Author(s) -
Burck Charlotte,
Frosh Stephen,
StricklandClark Lisa,
Morgan Kevin
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
journal of family therapy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.52
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1467-6427
pISSN - 0163-4445
DOI - 10.1111/1467-6427.00086
Subject(s) - family therapy , psychological intervention , theme (computing) , psychotherapist , psychology , competence (human resources) , social psychology , computer science , psychiatry , operating system
We describe the application of discursive analysis to the task of researching family therapy process. Through the analysis of a central theme in two family therapy treatments, we found that individual family members move to using a wider range of discourses on the central theme by the end of therapy. Using the example of one family's therapy sessions, we examine how the therapist contributes to the new meanings and views that emerge, and present our analysis of the therapists' interventions in relation to the ‘production’ of these alternative meanings. It is argued that discourse analysis can fruitfully be applied to family therapy process research and could contribute to theoretical concepts of change and therapeutic competence.