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Methodological challenges and analytical affordances of discourse analysis

Joanna Pawelczyk

Abstract: The issue of client change in psychotherapy is vital for every therapy approach. Yet, at the same time, the research conducted both from clinical quantitative and qualitative perspectives demonstrates the complexity of not only what client change is, but also of how it should be examined. This paper problematizes the very concept of ‘client change’ as this problematization has critical methodological implications for the research. For example, one of the essential questions to be considered is whose perspective we should adopt as researchers in examining client change.

Quantitative clinical studies have identified a number of factors that contribute to the effectiveness of psychotherapy (Norcross 2011), yet as Silberschatz (2015: 1) has recently claimed: “little progress has been made in elucidating mechanisms of change”. Little is also known about the interactional process(es) leading to client change. This paper focuses on qualitative approaches to examining client change in psychotherapy.

Discourse analysis as a qualitative methodology used to investigate language use in context, has the tools to examine the process of client change. Thus it can be complementary to the main empirical psychotherapy research (Elliott 2012). This paper demonstrates how the clinical and discourse analytic perspectives can be combined in researching client change in two ways. Firstly, discourse analysis can evidence how the postulated mechanisms of change are actually accomplished in an interaction between the psychotherapist and the client. Secondly, based on the concept of common factors in psychotherapy (Lambert 2013a), the paper proposes common interactional strategies in psychotherapy fundamental to promoting client change.

Keywords: client change, discourse analysis, conversation analysis, common factors in psychotherapy, common interactional strategies