Creating Therapeutic Stories Through Case Conceptualizations in Couple Therapy

Abstract

Psychotherapists have a way of understanding how or why the client is having difficulties and what might happen in therapy for the client to overcome those difficulties. We call this the therapist’s case conceptualization. Case conceptualizations tend to answer the what, why, and how questions of problem formation and resolution. Most therapists enact their case conceptualization through creating a therapeutic story that frames what is going on and what would make sense for change to happen. Given that people story their lives, creating a therapeutic story helps clients to more readily understand, and then enact, this new story framework.