The present study examined the emergence of innovative moments in a successful case of Brief Integrative Psychotherapy (BIP) based on Hill’s 3-stage model. Hill’s model suggests that optimally therapeutic processes involve exploration (based on client-centered therapy), insight (based on psychoanalytic therapy), and action (based on behavioral therapy). Innovative moments are exceptions to the problematic pattern of meaning that brought the client to therapy. Previous studies showed that their occurrences in the therapeutic conversation were related to symptomatic improvement in different therapeutic models; nevertheless, they have not yet been explored in integrative psychotherapy, and especially psychotherapy that contains explicit psychodynamic components. The aim of the study was too examine the relations between innovative moments, on the one hand, and (a) symptomatic improvement, (b) therapist’s interventions, and (c) client’s subjective experience, session by session, on the other. A 12-session case study of a 27-year-old female client was coded according to the Innovative Moments Coding System. Outcome improvement was measured by the Outcome Questionnaire (OQ-45.2). Therapist’s interventions were coded according to the Helping Skills Scale (HSS). The subjective experience for each session was measured by the Session Evaluation Questionnaire (SEQ). The findings suggest that innovative moments are related to symptomatic change. Exploration and insight interventions were related to the emergence of more elementary innovative moments, whereas action interventions were found to be related to more highly developed innovative moments. Finally, innovative moments were strongly associated with 3 out of the 4 dimensions of client’s subjective experience of the session (depth, smoothness, and positivity). These results should be further explored at a sample level.

Objectives. Contemporary relational theories consider clients' ability to move between multiple self-states and clients' ability to experience and process emotions to be two therapeutic processes inherently connected and fundamental to growth and change in psychotherapy. The current research aimed to empirically explore these theoretical assumptions by (1) examining the between-and within-client temporal association between clients' levels of ability to move between multiple self-states and clients' emotional experiencing and processing over the course of therapy, and by (2) testing whether this association would be more prominent for clients presenting good treatment outcomes. Method. Based on treatment outcome measures, two contrasting groups were selected, nine successful and nine unsuccessful. Ninety session transcripts (five per client) were analysed using the Two-Person APES (TPA), an extension of the Assimilation of Problematic Experiences Scale (APES), for the measurement of the ability to move between self-states. Sessions were also analysed using the Experiencing Scale (EXP), for the measurement of emotional experiencing. For all predictors, we disaggregated withinand between-client effects. Results. No association was found between EXP and TPA levels. However, at the between-client level, an interaction effect was found indicating a positive correlation between TPA and EXP only for the good-outcome cases, whereas a negative correlation between these variables was found for the poor-outcome cases. Conclusions. The ability to move between multiple self-states and accessibility to emotional experiencing may be seen as complementary processes enhancing the effectiveness of therapy. However, a high level of one process combined with a low level of the other may be a sign of poor therapeutic outcome. Practitioner points Clients' capacity to negotiate between conflicted self-states and their ability to experience and process emotions are two determinants working in a synergistic way to predict improvement in clients' symptoms. The presence of only one of these psychological processes without the other might be an indication of poor therapeutic outcome.