Studying psychotherapy change in narrative terms: The innovative moments method

Abstract

This paper aims to describe the Innovative Moments (IM) Coding System (IMCS), an idiographic and transtheoretical methodology that allows the identification of IMs—markers of changes in the client's initial maladaptive framework of meaning—throughout psychotherapy. The present study introduces the theoretical background underlying this methodology, along with the main empirical findings resulting from former studies that have applied this tool to clinical data. The IMCS application is also detailed: the coding phases, the training steps and inter‐rater agreement measures. In order to illustrate the application of IM coding, a case study is presented. Although a partial coding was used, the results are in line with previous research. Discussion is centred on the usefulness of the IMCS for the advance of process research in psychotherapy, and the potential use of this methodology in group format.

Innovative moments on online Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for alcohol dependence: a case study

“…The recordings of the online therapy sessions were analysed through video media by two psychologists studying to obtain their Ph.D., properly trained by the same instructor, which has a Ph.D. in psychology and experience in analysing the IMs. Both of the researchers took the training for the IMCS, on presential modality, in Portugal, directly supervised by the original authors (for a detailed account of the training steps see Batista et al, 2020). Although the online CBT treatment was based on a 12 sessions protocol, only six sessions per case were chosen to analyse the IMs: two sessions from the beginning of the treatment (sessions 1 and 2), two sessions from the middle (sessions 6 and 7) and two sessions from the end of the treatment (sessions 11 and 12).…”

“…For a review of the previous studies' kappas see Gonçalves et al (2017). The judges calculated the inter-coder agreement for the proportion using the proportions of words overlaid by both judges following this formula: 2*Agreement between judges/(Judge 1 total IMs+Judge 2 total IMs)*100 (Batista et al, 2020). It is considered a reliable and robust settlement >0.75 (Hill et al, 2005).…”

Differences Between Subclinical Ruminators and Reflectors in Narrating Autobiographical Memories: Innovative Moments and Autobiographical Reasoning

“…The purpose of this study is to relate these three conceptualizations of personal reasoning processes to each other by analyzing IMs and AR in narratives of personal experiences by ruminators and reflectors. Gonçalves et al (2011Gonçalves et al ( , 2017 and Batista et al (2020) developed a coding system to identify statements that indicate a change in the problematic patterns of meaning. It was first developed in the context of narrative psychotherapy (Matos et al, 2009), but was also applied successfully to emotion-focused (Mendes et al, 2011), client-centered (Gonçalves et al, 2012), cognitivebehavioral (Gonçalves et al, 2017), and constructivist grief psychotherapy (Alves et al, 2014).…”

“…In this paper we relate three ways of conceptualizing such reasoning processes which to date have been studied in different fields of psychology. In psychotherapy research, Gonçalves et al (2011 , 2017) traced processes of therapeutic change in session transcripts in terms of statements that contain exceptions (i.e., changes) to the problematic patterns of meaning that are typical of psychopathology; they termed these exceptions innovative moments (IMs; Batista et al, 2020 ). The authors proposed that IMs are the building blocks of more adaptive interpretations which emerge in successful psychotherapy.…”

Introduction to the Special Section ‘Innovative counselling and psychotherapy research methods’: Defining the future of counselling and psychotherapy research

“…Using this methodology in a study of the therapeutic alliance, they particularly recommend disentangling between‐person from within‐person effects. Batista et al (2020) discuss the innovative moments method. Based on an idiographic and transtheoretical conception, the authors propose to study in detail the process of emergence of innovative moments in‐session.…”