Principles for facilitating agency in psychotherapy

Williams, Daniel C.; Levitt, Heidi M.

doi:10.1080/10503300500469098

Cited by 80 publications

(64 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…This suggests that participants began to construe their work in therapy in increasingly agentic terms as time passed. Indeed, the centrality of client agency in clinical improvement has been regarded as important across therapists' theoretical orientations (Williams & Levitt, 2007), though this study marks the first to empirically document it in a naniralistic outpatient treatment setting.…”

Section: The Relationship Between Narrative Change and Mental Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Living into the story: Agency and coherence in a longitudinal study of narrative identity development and mental health over the course of psychotherapy.

Adler

2012

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

403

358

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Narrative identity is the internalized, evolving story of the self that each person crafts to provide his or her life with a sense of purpose and unity. A proliferation of empirical research studies focused on narrative identity have explored its relationship with psychological well-being. The present study is the first prospective, multiwave longitudinal investigation to examine short-term personality change via an emphasis on narrative identity as it relates to mental health. Forty-seven adults wrote rich personal narratives prior to beginning psychotherapy and after every session over 12 assessment points while concurrently completing a measure of mental health. Narratives were coded for the themes of agency and coherence, which capture the dual aims of narrative identity: purpose and unity. By applying in-depth thematic coding to the stories of participants, the present study produced 47 case studies of intraindividual personality development and mental health. By employing multilevel modeling with the entire set of nearly 600 narratives, the present study also identified robust trends of individual differences in narrative changes as they related to improvements in mental health. Results indicated that, across participants, the theme of agency, but not coherence, increased over the course of time. In addition, increases in agency were related to improvements in participants' mental health. Finally, lagged growth curve models revealed that changes in the theme of agency occurred prior to the associated improvements in mental health. This finding remained consistent across a variety of individual-difference variables including demographics, personality traits, and ego development.

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Section: The Relationship Between Narrative Change and Mental Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Living into the story: Agency and coherence in a longitudinal study of narrative identity development and mental health over the course of psychotherapy.

Adler

2012

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

403

358

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“…In a world with few scripts, characterized by frequent disruptions and discontinuities, the importance of agentic action in directing lives becomes increasingly important (Fouad & Bynner, 2008). The capacity for agentic action or some kind of personal power over one's life is also essential for psychological health (Williams & Levitt, 2007).…”

Section: The Meaning Of Agentic Actionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Pollack and Slavin (1998) surmise that traumatic experience may have its most negative impact on the potential for agentic action. Williams and Levitt's (2007) qualitative analysis of interviews with key figures, who represented diverse psychotherapy orientations, identified restoration of the capacity for agency as an implicit goal across schools of psychotherapy.…”

Section: The Problem Of Agentic Action In a Social Constructionist Lensmentioning

confidence: 99%

Counseling for Work and Relationship

Richardson

2011

The Counseling Psychologist

197

243

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Counseling for work and relationship is a social constructionist perspective, informed by feminist and social justice values, and responsive to radical changes in contemporary lives, that fosters a shift in vocational psychology from helping people develop careers to helping people construct lives through work and relationship. The first and major proposition of this perspective is a new discourse for describing the construction of lives that specifies four major social contexts through which people construct lives. These social contexts are market work, personal care work, personal relationships, and market work relationships. Additional propositions of the counseling for work and relationship perspective are the centrality of narrative theory for understanding how lives are constructed and agentic action as a critical process in constructing lives. Implications for research, intervention, and training are considered.

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“…These themes tap the primary motivational dimensions of most personal narratives and therefore both have important implications for understanding psychotherapy. The theme of agency, or the individual's ability to impact his or her circumstances, is regarded as a positive indicator of mental health in both clinical and non-clinical populations (e.g., McAdams, et al, 1996;Williams & Levitt, 2007), and enhancing client agency has been considered one of the primary goals of treatment (e.g., Fasulo, 2007;Nilsson, Svensson, Sandell, & Clinton, 2007;Rennie, 1994;Williams & Levitt, 2007).…”

Section: Evaluating the Cs-amnp As A Means To Assess Autobiographicalmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, in a recent study (Williams & Levitt, 2007), 14 eminent therapists representing a broad range of approaches to psychotherapy including psychodynamic, cognitive- behavioral, humanistic, and narrative, were surveyed about their understanding of the process of change. The investigators used grounded theory methodology to identify common themes in these therapists' answers, and client agency emerged as one of their primary emphases.…”

Section: Evaluating the Cs-amnp As A Means To Assess Autobiographicalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rising to the Challenges of Identifying and Analyzing Clients' Narratives

Adler

2010

PCSP

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Psychotherapy researchers and clinicians alike are faced with two primary challenges in the service of most effectively understanding the therapeutic process: first, they must identify the most generative elements from the rich flow of therapeutic dialogue; and second, they must select the most appropriate and productive tools for analyzing them. Singer and Bonalume (2010) have developed the Coding System for Autobiographical Memory Narratives in Psychotherapy (CS-AMNP), a trans-theoretical method for rising to these two challenges. In this commentary, the CS-AMNP is evaluated: its noteworthy contributions are highlighted, its potential limitations are discussed, and fruitful expansions are proposed in terms of extending it from autobiographical narratives in therapy to autobiographical narratives about therapy.

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Principles for facilitating agency in psychotherapy

Cited by 80 publications

References 24 publications

Living into the story: Agency and coherence in a longitudinal study of narrative identity development and mental health over the course of psychotherapy.

Living into the story: Agency and coherence in a longitudinal study of narrative identity development and mental health over the course of psychotherapy.

Counseling for Work and Relationship

Rising to the Challenges of Identifying and Analyzing Clients' Narratives

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