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Volume 6 Number 1
Spring 2012
| Therapeutic
Change, Innovative Moments, and the
Reconceptualization of the Self: A Dialogical Account Miguel M. Gonçalves António P. Ribeiro University of Minho, Braga, Portugal |
pp. 81-98 |
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ABSTRACT.
Innovative moments (IMs) are exceptions toward the
problematic self-narrative that brought the client
to therapy, which emerge in the therapeutic
conversation. Dialogically, an IM might be conceived
as an expression of an alternative I-position which
challenges the dominance of problematic voices, thus
having the potential to transform the self-narrative
as they are expanded and elaborated.
Reconceptualization is a particular type of IM which
usually emerges in the middle of the process of a
successful treatment, increasing steadily until the
end. Moreover, reconceptualization seems to be a
distinctive feature of a successful psychotherapy
process, as it is almost absent in poor outcome
cases. This IM has two main features: the presence
of a contrast between a previous self-narrative and
a new emergent one, and the access to the process
which allowed for the transformation from the former
to the last. This innovative moment clearly involves
a special I-position which Hermans has characterized
as a meta-position. We discuss four functions of
this type of IM in the change process: (1) providing
a narrative structure for change; (2) bridging the
past and present self-narratives; (3) facilitating
the progressive identification with the new
self-narrative; and (4) allowing surpassing the
ambivalence often involved in the change process. |
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