Abstract

BARBOSA, Marina Belelli  and  GUANAES-LORENZI, Carla. Meanings constructed by family members about your therapeutic process in family therapy. Psicol. clin. [online]. 2015, vol.27, n.2, pp.15-38. ISSN 0103-5665.

In the last decades, the field of systemic family therapy has been influenced by social constructionist epistemological principles. These principles have been supporting therapeutic approaches that value practices based on conversational, reflexive, and dialogical processes. This qualitative study aims to understand how family members make meanings about their own therapeutic process. These family members were seen in family therapy sessions based on social constructionist propositions. For this purpose, seven semi-structured individual interviews were conducted, audio recorded, transcribed and later analyzed through qualitative procedures of thematic analysis. Through this analysis, the following thematic categories were constructed: construction of the problem; expectancies about treatment; therapeutic process; construction of change; and relationship with the therapists. This analysis allowed the recognition of some social constructionist emphases presented in the treatment, such as the focus on meaning, on polysemia, on polivocality, and on the conversational process. The analysis shows how the dislocation of the problems from an individual perspective to a relational one, the appreciation of various modes of understanding about a single situation, and the work with a reflecting team, were important resources in the development of the therapeutic process.

Keywords : family therapy; social constructionism; therapeutic process.

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