Using discourse and conversation analysis to study clinical practice in adult mental health

Abstract

The discipline of clinical psychology has emerged from a largely positivist approach to understanding human behaviour (Kiyimba, 2015), and applied research for clinical psychologists has, for the most part, followed the quantitative tradition. Psychology, in the wider sense, historically positioned itself within the sciences, and as such the quantitative approach to measuring phenomena has tended to predominate (Peters, 2010). Thus, the move towards using qualitative approaches within psychological research has been relatively recent, despite the rich pedigree of this paradigm (Howitt, 2010). One of the aspects of this new appreciation of qualitative research has been an acknowledgement of the important role that understanding the processes in therapeutic encounters plays. This line of enquiry has facilitated an integration of the scientific ideals of good-quality research with actual clinical practice (Rhodes, 2011).