Innovative moments and change processes in psychotherapy
an exercise in new methodology
pp. 493-526
in: Jaan Valsiner, Peter Molenaar, Maria Lyra, Nandita Chaudhary (eds), Dynamic process methodology in the social and developmental sciences, Berlin, Springer, 2009Abstract
Psychotherapy is a field where development of dynamic methodologies is a conceptual imperative. In this chapter we present an analysis of the Innovative Moments (i-moments) emergence in psychotherapeutic process, through a dialogical lens. I-moments are the novel ways of thinking, interacting, and behaving that the client narrates in the therapeutic conversation, which is different from the rule he or she usually applies to his or her life. This rule is composed of general meanings over the world that guides their behaviors and understandings about it. Using Josephs' and colleagues dialectical framework (Josephs & Valsiner, 1998; Josephs, Valsiner, & Surgan, 1999) we can conceive this rule as a macro organizer of meaning.