Between doubt and certainty: Exploring the therapeutic processes at work among family therapists in training

Abstract

This article proposes both a reflection on the concepts of doubt and certainty in psychotherapy and the description of a qualitative research on the emergence of a brief feeling of certainty among family therapists in training regarding the progress of the therapeutic process underway with their patients. In reference to the psycho-phenomenological paradigm, the exploration of significant therapeutic moments through a combined methodology (video feedback and explicitation interview) provided access to the therapists’subjective experience. Our results show how the external and internal gestures of the future therapists—carried out at reflective and pre-reflective levels of consciousness—contribute to the emergence of the feeling of certainty, which in turn contributes to the progress of the therapeutic work in contact.