Working with narrative in emotion-focused therapy: Changing stories, healing lives.

Angus, Lynne; Greenberg, Leslie S.

doi:10.1037/12325-000

Cited by 145 publications

(164 citation statements)

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“…Human beings create meaning and use language to shape their personal experiences into stories, or narratives (Angus & Greenberg, 2011). From the narrative standpoint, psychological difficulties indicate situations where important aspects of one‖s lived experience are not adequately represented in the self narrative revealed during therapy.…”

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confidence: 99%

Assessment of Autobiographical Memory Narratives in Psychotherapy with Borderline Personality Disorder: An exploratory study

Guruprasad

Bhola

2015

ResPsy

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Abstract. Autobiographical memory narratives that emerge in therapeutic discourse can aid the understanding of the client‖s narrative identity and the identification of central themes or conflicts. The study aimed to examine the structure and thematic content of autobiographical memory narratives of five clients with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), during the early phase of individual psychotherapy. The Biopsychosocial Interview gathered narrative material about the clients‖ life experiences in childhood and adulthood and explored the history of psychological difficulties and/or disorders. The interview and the first five sessions of psychotherapy for each client were audio recorded, transcribed and coded for analysis. The Coding System for Autobiographical Memory Narratives in Psychotherapy was used to identify autobiographical memory narratives from the clients‖ life experiences, rate the narrative complexity, specificity and integration, and derive narrative patterns or themes. Analysis indicated that the narratives had a moderate level of complexity, low levels of specificity, were predominantly autobiographical, poorly integrated and revealed dominant themes of contamination. Narrative themes of agency, communion and redemption were relatively lower among the clients. The implications for therapeutic practice, training of clinicians and future research are discussed. Keywords: autobiographical memory, narratives, borderline personality disorder, psychotherapyHuman beings create meaning and use language to shape their personal experiences into stories, or narratives (Angus & Greenberg, 2011). From the narrative standpoint, psychological difficulties indicate situations where important aspects of one‖s lived experience are not adequately represented in the self narrative revealed during therapy. By helping the client reconstruct problematic self narratives to become more coherent, complex and inclusive, therapy is considered a process of -story repair‖ (Avdi & Georgaca, 2007).There is a growing interest in the concept of -narrative identity‖ and related processes or dimensions (McAdams & Pals, 2006;McLean, 2008) as tools to understand psychotherapy processes and change (Angus, Levitt & Hardtke, 1999;Angus et al., 2012;Boritz, Angus, Monette, Hollis-Walker, & Warwar, 2011;Luborsky, 1977;Matos, Santos, Goncalves, & Martins, 2009;Mendes et al., 2010;Singer, Blagov, Berry, & Oost, 2013;Singer & Bonalume, 2010a). Narrative identity is referred to as "the internal, dynamic life story that an individual constructs to make sense of his or her life" (Bauer, McAdams, & Pals, 2008). Narratives that may emerge in therapy may range from descriptions of a specific event, to an overarching life story that spans across several years.The ability to construct a coherent narrative is ba- sed on memory, particularly autobiographical memory. Autobiographical memories are "transitory dynamic mental constructions generated from an underlying knowledge base" (Conway & PleydellPearce, 2000, p. 261). Subsequently, the qualitat...

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confidence: 99%

Assessment of Autobiographical Memory Narratives in Psychotherapy with Borderline Personality Disorder: An exploratory study

Guruprasad

Bhola

2015

ResPsy

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“…While EFT makes use of the narrative modality [12], its major focus is on the emotion modality and "involves the activation and regulation of the emotion regions of the brain." ([3], p. 797) EFT helps clients bring to awareness previously inaccessible experiences through the indirect activation of emotion schemes.…”

Section: Modality and Techniquesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Redeeming Emotion-Focused Therapy: A Christian Analysis of Its Worldview, Epistemology, and Emphasis

Hardin¹

2014

Religions

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While emotion-focused therapy (EFT) offers clinically useful information to Christian practitioners, its underlying worldview, epistemology, and emphasis present challenges for Christian therapists. This article advocates that Christian practitioners can redeem EFT for Christ by evaluating and translating these presuppositions in light of Christian alternatives. In offering these alternatives, the article encourages the creation of a distinctively Christian emotion-focused therapy (CEFT).

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“…Drawing on a Dialectical Constructivist model of therapeutic change, Angus and Greenberg (2011) further note that the reflexive construction of new personal meanings also involves the narrative organization and articulation of client emotional experiences in productive emotion-focused therapy (EFT) sessions. In this paper, we first provide a brief overview of Angus and Greenberg's (2011) Dialectical Constructivist model of therapeutic change that highlights the contributions of narrative and emotion processes for productive meaning-making construction, and efficacious treatment outcomes, in EFT of depression. Next, through the development and application of the Narrative Processes Coding System (NPCS; Angus, 2012), we describe the methodological steps undertaken to investigate the contributions of client storytelling, emotional differentiation and meaningmaking processes in EFT of depression (Angus, Lewin, Bouffard, & Rotondi-Trevisan, 2004).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Drawing on a Dialectical Constructivist model of therapeutic change, this paper addresses the fundamental contributions of client narrative disclosure, emotional differentiation and reflexive meaning-making processes in emotion-focused treatments of depression. An overview of the multi-methodological steps undertaken to empirically investigate the contributions of client storytelling, emotional differentiation, and meaning-making processes, using the Narrative Processes Coding System (NPCS; Angus et al, 1999) are provided, followed by a summary of key research findings that informed the development of a narrative-informed approach to emotion-focused therapy of depression (Angus & Greenberg, 2011). Finally, therapy practice implications for the adoption of a research-informed approach to working with narrative and emotion processes in emotion-focused therapy are described and future research directions discussed.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Narrative Processes Coding System: A Dialectical Constructivist Approach to Assessing Client Change Processes in Emotion-Focused Therapy of Depression

Angus¹,

Lewin²,

Boritz³

et al. 2013

ResPsy

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Abstract. Drawing on a Dialectical Constructivist model of therapeutic change, this paper addresses the fundamental contributions of client narrative disclosure, emotional differentiation and reflexive meaning-making processes in emotion-focused treatments of depression. An overview of the multi-methodological steps undertaken to empirically investigate the contributions of client storytelling, emotional differentiation, and meaning-making processes, using the Narrative Processes Coding System (NPCS; Angus et al., 1999) are provided, followed by a summary of key research findings that informed the development of a narrative-informed approach to emotion-focused therapy of depression (Angus & Greenberg, 2011). Finally, therapy practice implications for the adoption of a research-informed approach to working with narrative and emotion processes in emotion-focused therapy are described and future research directions discussed.

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Working with narrative in emotion-focused therapy: Changing stories, healing lives.

Cited by 145 publications

References 82 publications

Assessment of Autobiographical Memory Narratives in Psychotherapy with Borderline Personality Disorder: An exploratory study

Assessment of Autobiographical Memory Narratives in Psychotherapy with Borderline Personality Disorder: An exploratory study

Redeeming Emotion-Focused Therapy: A Christian Analysis of Its Worldview, Epistemology, and Emphasis

Narrative Processes Coding System: A Dialectical Constructivist Approach to Assessing Client Change Processes in Emotion-Focused Therapy of Depression

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