Abstract
M.A.
The primary aim of the study is to scrutinize the effect of a goal directed psychotherapeutic focus on the client’s childhood experiences, on the therapeutic process, through the narrative analysis of a psychotherapy session. A goal directed therapeutic focus on childhood experiences is defined as any therapeutic approach that considers a focus on the client’s childhood as a prerequisite for change in the present. The study postulates that ‘n goal directed therapeutic focus on childhood experiences is imbedded in a modernistic framework and therefore relies on a set of modernistic principles that could collectively have an undesired effect on therapeutic conversation and consequently on the unfolding of narratives in the session.
This criticism is grounded in a social constructionist-narrative epistemology which emphasises the collaborative exploration of alternative narratives in psychotherapy and thus the “agendaless” and collaborative nature of therapeutic conversation. From this perspective a goal directed therapeutic focus on the client’s childood experiences is considered to be counterproductive to the therapeutic process, as the therapist can loose touch with the client’s idiosyncratic metanarratives and agendas for therapy. In the case of incongruence between the therapist’s and the client’s metanarratives and agendas for therapy, a process can unfold in which the two members of the conversation attempts to persuade each other to accept their points of view. This battle of wills is viewed as therapeutic resistance which could constrain the client’s narratives in the therapy session (Anderson & Goolishian, 1992 ; Shawver, 2002).
Therapeutic resistance, from the perspective of this study is seen as a process which unfolds as the result of the therapist’s unwillingness to adjust his/her therapeutic approach or goals to complement the client’s idiosyncratic perspective on reality and unique agendas for therapy, and not as the result of intrapsychic defense mechanisms, as it is seen from a modernist perspective. Therapeutic resistance is thus viewed as the result of the incongruence or clash of metanarratives in the therapy session. This argument leads to the hypothesis of the study: “A goal directed therapeutic focus on the client’s childhood experiences can lead to therapeutic resistance”.
This hypothesis was confirmed through the findings of the narrative analysis of the therapy session. The results of the study showed that incongruence existed between the therapist’s and the client’s metanarratives as the client had a future-directed problem solving agenda and the therapist a goal driven, past-directed problem solving agenda, and that this incongruence lead to therapeutic resistance.
An alternative hypothesis was presented: “A genuine agendaless interest in the content of the client’s life story can create a context for constructive therapeutic conversation in which the co-construction of alternative stories can occur”. This hypothesis suggests an agendaless focus on the client’s childhood experiences which can only be achieved through the acceptance and the application of social constructionist-narrative principles in therapy. A part of this alternative focus on the client’s past, involves the abandoning of modernistic metanarratives through which psychological problems and solutions are universalised and therapeutic methods are applied as standard procedures. When therapy is approach from an agendaless perspective the client remains in charge of the direction (past, present or future) of the therapeutic conversation and the past is revisited according to the client’s own pace and terms.
The first part of the study will involve a discussion on a number of modernistic therapeutic approaches which empasise a goal directed focus on the client’s past and thus view a therapeutic focus on childhood experiences as a prerequisite for change in the present. The discussion will focus on the shared modernistic principles of these theories, which will be identified by the question: “Why do therapists focus on childhood experiences”? These principles and the concerted impact of them on the therapeutic process will then be criticised from a social constructionist-narrative approach. A discussion on the findings of the narrative analysis of the therapy session will conclude the study.