Dynamics of psychotherapy processes

Abstract

This book has taken up the challenge to reflect on new paths to develop research methods in psychology and social sciences. Moreover-it also leads us to the clinical field. We can consider psychotherapy as an ongoing process of meaningful exchange between interlocutors-therapist and patient-that takes place in the here-and-now time frame. Of course these features pertain to most human psychological processes that involve transformation in time and construction of meanings about the self and the other. In psychotherapy we emphasize the evolving nature of self experiencing, in permanent change and transformation with some moments of temporal stability assisted by the therapist and a therapeutic setting culturally sanctioned. If we consider in psychotherapy the question about change, or in other words, how transitory experiencing at times becomes stable and constitutes a new state in development, we should be able to search for a methodology that could apprehend transitory phenomena. © 2009 Springer-Verlag New York.