Innovative moments and change pathways. A good outcome case of narrative therapy

Objectives. Our aim was to explore the development of innovative moments (i-moments) in therapeutic conversation and to study how they match our heuristic model that accounts for the development of change, drawn from previous empirical research. Design. In this therapeutic process research, we analysed a good outcome case of narrative therapy with a woman victim of intimate violence. Methods. This case, composed of 12 sessions, was analysed with the Innovative Moments Coding System: Version 1. This coding system allowed the identification of five different types of innovations (i-moments) that appeared during the therapeutic process: action, reflection, protest, re-conceptualization, and performing change. For each session, an index of temporal salience was computed, as the percentage of the time in the session that client and therapist spent talking about each i-moment. Our analysis procedures provided a quantitative and also a complementary qualitative approach. Results. Data showed that the types of i-moments emerged differently throughout the process. Early sessions were characterized mainly by action and reflection (low temporal salience), middle sessions were found to have mainly protest i-moments (low or middle temporal salience), and final sessions were characterized by the combination of high salient re-conceptualization and performing change i-moments. Conclusions. Findings suggested that narrative change seems to develop in a cyclical way, in which different types of i-moments contribute to the development of a new self-narrative in different phases.