Narrative Processes Coding System: A Dialectical Constructivist Approach to Assessing Client Change Processes in Emotion-Focused Therapy of Depression

Abstract

Drawing on a Dialectical Constructivist model of therapeutic change, this paper addresses the fundamental contributions of client narrative disclosure, emotional differentiation and reflexive meaning-making processes in emotion-focused treatments of depression. An overview of the multi-methodological steps undertaken to empirically investigate the contributions of client storytelling, emotional differentiation, and meaning-making processes, using the Narrative Processes Coding System (NPCS; Angus et al., 1999) are provided, followed by a summary of key research findings that informed the development of a narrative-informed approach to emotion-focused therapy of depression (Angus & Greenberg, 2011). Finally, therapy practice implications for the adoption of a research-informed approach to working with narrative and emotion processes in emotion-focused therapy are described and future research directions discussed.

Keywords

• Narrative processes
• process-outcome research
• emotion-focused therapy