Constructing Nonagency at the Beginning of Psychotherapy: The 10DT model

Wahlström

Kurri

2019

J Contemp Psychother

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This multiple case study investigated how clients construct nonagentic positions when formulating their problems in the beginning of their first psychotherapy session. The initial problem formulations of nine clients entering psychotherapy were analyzed with a detailed model drawing on discursive methodology, the 10 Discursive Tools model (10DT). We found ten problem formulation categories, each one distinguished by the tool from the 10DT model primarily used to construct nonagency. All clients gave several problem formulations from different categories and constructed nonagentic positions with a variety of discursive tools. When the resulting problem formulation categories were read in comparison with the descriptions of the client's stance at the outset of psychotherapy as presented in two change process models, the Assimilation of Problematic Experiences Sequence and the Innovative Moments Coding System, some similarities were found. However, the 10DT model brought out much variation in the client's nonagentic positioning in the formulations, forming a contrast with the more simplified presentations of the client's initial nonagency given in the change process models. Therapists should pay close attention to how clients express their sense of lost agency at the outset of psychotherapy and how this positions both the client and the therapist as future collaborators in psychotherapy.

Section: The 10dt Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Constructions of Nonagency in the Clients’ Initial Problem Formulations at the Outset of Psychotherapy

Wahlström

Kurri

2019

J Contemp Psychother

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“…Positioning, as it appears in sequences of interaction, evolves throughout the therapy process, and therapeutic change can be portrayed as changes of discursive positions (Avdi, 2012(Avdi, , 2016Kurri & Wahlström, 2005, 2007Suoninen & Wahlström, 2009). In a previous article we discussed how clients in therapy talk move between many (non)agentic positions when positioning themselves in varying ways in relation to their actions and experiences (Toivonen, Wahlström, & Kurri, 2018).…”

Section: Positioning and Agency In Psychotherapymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Agency ascriptions can be discursively constructed in many ways. Our model of ten discursive tools for agency construction, 10DT (Toivonen, Wahlström, & Kurri, 2018) consists of ten pairs of discursive Discordances in Ascriptions of Agency and Reflectivity 6 devices called agency and nonagency tools that are in use in both self-ascriptions and other-ascriptions.…”

Section: The 10dt Model and The Two Dimensions Of Agency Ascriptionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our previous study showed that clients' self-ascribed positions can be agentic or nonagentic while being nonreflective, and likewise agentic or nonagentic while being reflective, that is, the two dimensions appear to be independent of each other (Toivonen, Wahlström, & Kurri, 2018). The speaker can display him-or herself as not able to act as he/she would like to (nonagentic), but he/she can still examine this inability in his/her speech (reflective).…”

Section: The 10dt Model and The Two Dimensions Of Agency Ascriptionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The 10DT model. The transcriptions of the sessions were first coded thoroughly using the 10DT model (Toivonen, Wahlström & Kurri, 2018). The model is presented in Table 1.…”

Section: Analytic Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Discordances in Ascriptions of Agency and Reflectivity in the First Psychotherapy Session

Journal of Constructivist Psychology

Wahlström

Kurri³

2018

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We analyzed the transcribed first sessions of nine long-term individual psychotherapies with a model of ten discursive tools of agency, 10DT, and studied discursive discordances, sequences of two talk turns where the client and the therapist were misaligned in terms of how they discursively ascribed agency to the client. The discordances could be categorized with regards to either reflectivity or agency. The results suggested that reflectivity and agency are independent dimensions. We also studied the agency self-ascriptions given by the clients immediately following the discordances and classified these discordance sequences according to whether and how the client's self-ascription of agency changed from the first turn to the third one in the sequence. Eight different types of sequences were found. In the sequences where the clients' reflective agency ascriptions changed into nonreflective ones, the therapists' nonreflective agency ascriptions had different usages and were therapeutically motivated to differing degrees. The clients produced many reflective agency constructions already during the very first psychotherapy session, but the therapists often failed to recognize this, especially when following an agenda of collecting facts.

Themes of climate change agency: a qualitative study on how people construct agency in relation to climate change

2022

Humanit Soc Sci Commun

This study analyzes how people discursively construct their (non)agency—how they display abilities and capacities to act, or the lack thereof—vis-à-vis climate change. The paper presents the results of a detailed discursive and thematic analysis of 28 interview transcripts: 12 broad agency themes representing different ways of constructing human (non)agency in relation to climate change. The most common agency theme was Collective, followed by Individual, Critical, and Threatened agency. Climate change skepticism was displayed mostly within Critical agency, where the speakers presented themselves as intellectual and critically thinking individuals, drawing from scientific rhetoric while criticizing and misrepresenting climate science. The constructions of Collective agency emerged as a form of agency that displays a sense of meaningfulness related to socially embedded actions. The construction of agency in relation to climate change is very detailed discursive work, as people draw from multiple societal discourses to craft varied discursive positions of experiencing, knowing, and doing in relation to it. The paper suggests ways for climate communications to take into account these multiple themes of agency.