TY - JOUR
AU1 - Angus, Lynne
AU2 - Hardtke, Karen
AB - From a narrative-informed therapy perspective, it is the sudden awareness of new ways of experiencing and understanding the connections between actions, emotions, and intentions of self and others, expressed in personal stories, that is definitive of client insight and narrative story change in psychotherapy. One's stories of self and others are made meaningful when one can construct a coherent, causal account that provides a cogent explanation of factors that enhance or impede significant relationships with others. Accordingly, it is not surprising that psychotherapy researchers have begun to empirically investigate the relationship between narrative coherence and psychological well-being in a variety of clinical populations. Narrative coherence markers identified in these studies have included: (a) a clear sense of the beginning, middle, and end of the story; (b) descriptions of the internal subjective experiences of protagonists and antagonists; (c) an explicit understanding of causes or factors that contributed to conflicting emotions, actions, and intentions of self and others; and (d) an inner-felt sense of resolution in which an old problem is seen and experienced in a new, often more positive light that promotes a heightened sense of self-coherence, personal agency, and hopefulness. Despite these research initiatives, the relationship between client insight, problem resolution, and heightened narrative coherence has not been investigated in the psychotherapy research literature. To address this gap, this chapter reports findings from an intensive, narrative analysis of story coherence and insight that emerged in the context of one client's struggle to address unresolved feelings of anger and resentment toward her husband. The major aim of this exploratory study will be to identify key stages of narrative change that contribute to the emergence of new ways of seeing, experiencing, and understanding self and others--insight--in the context of one good-outcome, client-centered therapy dyad. Specifically, the contributions of client storytelling, emotional differentiation, and new meaning-making will be assessed in light of the emergence of insight, problem resolution, and enhanced story coherence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
TI - Insight in psychotherapy.: Margaret's Story: An Intensive Case Analysis of Insight and Narrative Process Change in Client-Centered Psychotherapy.
DA - 2007-10-08
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/american-psychological-association/insight-in-psychotherapy-margaret-s-story-an-intensive-case-analysis-2I90ElXYTN
DP - DeepDyve
ER -