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Temas em Psicologia

Print version ISSN 1413-389X

Abstract

SEQUEIRA, Joana  and  ALARCAO, Madalena. Why don't families change?: Narratives of family therapy failures. Temas psicol. [online]. 2013, vol.21, n.1, pp. 203-219. ISSN 1413-389X.  http://dx.doi.org/10.9788/TP2013.1-15.

Systemic narrative family therapy promotes change through disruption of the dominant stories about the problem and construction of new stories to signify life events. The aim of this study was to understand the aspects that block the narrative change. In this case study we analyzed two concluded family therapies, considered failures by clients and therapists. Sixteen family therapy sessions were intensively viewed and analyzed through the Assessment System of Narrative Change (SAMN). The results showed that: (a) the narratives remain static, centered in the present or in the past, with total absence of future perspectives, (b) the families explain their problems based on direct relations between causes and effects (linear causality) and (c) the emergence of singularities and narrative reflexivity are punctual and unable to disrupt the dominant narrative and to be amplified by therapeutic system. Based on a model of narrative organization into three distinct logical levels, the authors discuss the results of this study highlighting the need to identify and work on the level where the narrative is blocked to enhance therapeutic change or 2nd order change.

Keywords : Narrative; family therapy; change; therapeutic failure.

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