Phenomenological analysis of the dynamics of clients’ experience in the process of psychotherapy: a case-study. Part 1

Abstract

The paper describes the results of a phenomenological study of client experiences in the process of psychotherapy. We assumed that the experience changes during the course of psychotherapy, and the dynamics of the experience could be observed both within one session and between sessions. The sample consisted of 6 people aged 29 to 53, 5 women and 1 man. One woman attended 4 meetings with a psychotherapist, the man and other women — 3 meetings each. Conversations were recorded on a dictaphone and then transcribed. Two independent experts read and coded each transcript, and then codes were discussed. At the first stage of analysis, we noted unique semantic units. At the second stage, they were coded. We describe the dynamics of the experiences of each client separately from the beginning to the end of work with a psychotherapist. The results allow us to conclude that there are transformations of experiences in all clients; both in their experiences regarding the work process and also regarding the problem situations that were the reason for treatment. The results of further categorization, generalization, and interpretation will be described in the next paper.

Keywords

• psychotherapy
• effectiveness of psychotherapy
• experience
• phenomenological analysis
• clients’ changes