Therapeutic change and innovative moments

Abstract

According to White and Epston (1990), psychotherapeutic change occurs through the elaboration of unique outcomes, or Innovative Moments (IMs), as we prefer to call them. Unique outcomes are exceptions to the problem saturated story that allow a new narrative to emerge. In this study, IMs are analyzed in five cases with good therapeutic outcomes and five cases with poor outcomes. Results show differences regarding the salience index (time devoted to the IMs in the session), which is higher in the good outcomes group. Data also reveal that reconceptualization and new experiences of IMs are almost absent in poor outcomes cases. We suggest a model of construction of new narratives, where reconceptualization of IMs allows the development of a meta-position over the change process. Thus, clients become authors of their own self narratives and develop new life scripts (new experiences of IMs).

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17575/rpsicol.v23i1.317