The Construction of Clients' Experience of Psychotherapy Through Narrative,Practical Action and the Multiple Streams of Consciousness

Abstract

In response to the demise of positivist rationality, different theoretical traditions have proposed alternative formulations of the way in which human beings construct their realities: discourse (social constructionism), self-interventions (critical realism), and the potentials of human consciousness (the humanist tradition). The notion of a “practical order” is introduced to conceptualize the practical context in which self-intervention takes place. Qualitative accounts of client experience of psychotherapy (Dinnage, 1988) provide examples of all three modes of reality construction. It is argued that a multimode perspective is consequently needed to provide an integrative framework that identifies in a systematic manner the different facets of client experience. The three modes correspond to three different sorts of questions that need to be addressed when researching client experience of psychotherapy. The multimode perspective advocated in this paper is used to highlight neglected research topics in this domain.

Keywords

psychotherapy social constructionism critical realism discourse consciousness client accounts

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