This article presents a method for the assessment of innovative moments, which are novelties that emerge in contrast to a client's problematic self-narrative as expressed in therapy, the innovative moments coding system (IMCS). The authors discuss the theoretical background of the IMCS as well as its coding procedures. Results from several studies suggest that the IMCS is a reliable and valid coding system that can be applied to several modalities of psychotherapy. Finally, future research implications are discussed.

According to the narrative metaphor of psychotherapy, clients transform themselves by changing their life stories. According to the narrative therapy of White and Epston (1990), the construction of change occurs from the expansion of unique outcomes, or innovative moments as we prefer to call them, that is, the development of episodes outside the problem-saturated narrative. Unique outcomes operate as exceptions to the rule (i.e., to the problem-saturated story) that can be changed to a new rule (i.e., a new narrative). We suggest that some forms of unique outcomes can operate as shadow-voices (Gustafson, 1992) of the problem-saturated story, allowing a temporary release from the problem, but facilitating a return to it. In our view, there is a particular type of unique outcome-re-conceptualization-that facilitates sustained change. This kind of innovation facilitates the emergence of a meta-level perspective about the change process itself, and in turn, enables the active positioning of the person as an author of the new narrative.

Narrative therapy suggests that change happens by paying close attention in therapy to "unique outcomes," which are narrative details outside the main story (White & Epston, 1990). In this exploratory study, unique outcomes were analyzed in five good-outcome and five poor-outcome psychotherapy cases using the Innovative Moments Coding System (Gonçalves, Matos, & Santos, 2008). Across 127 sessions, innovative moments were coded in terms of salience and type. In accordance with the theory, results suggest that innovative moments are important to therapeutic change. Poor- and good-outcome groups have a global difference in the salience of the innovative moments. In addition, results suggest that two particular types of innovative moments are needed in narrative therapy for therapeutic change to take place: re-conceptualization and new experiences. Implications for future research using this model of analysis are discussed.

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A large body of research clearly indicates that men are victims of intimate partner violence (IPV). However, in Portugal, the phenomenon of male victims of IPV remains hidden and is not a target of research, public policy, or social attention. This exploratory study analyzed the prevalence of victimization, help-seeking behaviors, and needs of 89 men who defined themselves as victims of IPV. Men reported that they had been the victims of at least 1 abusive behavior by their current or former female partner. Psychological violence, followed by physical and sexual violence, was the most frequently reported experience. The majority of the men did not seek help because of difficulty in self-identifying as victims, shame, and distrust of the support system. When they did seek help, informal sources, such as friends and family, were used more often than formal sources. In terms of formal support, victims used health professionals and social/victim support services more than any other type. The male victims evaluated the formal resources (e.g., social/victim support services, police, justice system) as unhelpful. A mediation model showed that both frequency of physical violence and self-reported impact of IPV predicted help-seeking, with impact of IPV partially mediating the association between physical IPV and help-seeking. The results indicate the difficulties that men have in recognizing themselves as victims of abuse, their reluctance to seek help, the barriers they face, and their heterogeneous and idiosyncratic needs. The implications regarding masculinity, the help-seeking system, and public policy are discussed.

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According to the author's narrative model of change, clients may maintain a problematic self-stability across therapy, leading to therapeutic failure, by a mutual in-feeding process, which involves a cyclical movement between two opposing parts of the self. During innovative moments (IMs) in the therapy dialogue, clients' dominant self-narrative is interrupted by exceptions to that self-narrative, but subsequently the dominant self-narrative returns. The authors identified return-to-the-problem markers (RPMs), which are empirical indicators of the mutual in-feeding process, in passages containing IMs in 10 cases of narrative therapy (five good-outcome cases and five poor-outcome cases) with females who were victims of intimate violence. The poor-outcome group had a significantly higher percentage of IMs with RPMs than the good-outcome group. The results suggest that therapeutic failures may reflect a systematic return to a dominant self-narrative after the emergence of novelties (IMs).

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