Using communicative practices as a means to solve (inter-)personal problems has always been an important facet of the helping professions. Peräkylä’s (2019) paper on ‘transformative sequences’ in psychotherapy has argued that important change events occur on three dimensions that are grounded in conversational practices: relations, referents and emotions. There is much agreement, that – for example – a ‘good’ relationship between help provider and client bears a significant, positive relation to the outcome of the process. Yet, most of the existing research mainly relies on quantitative methods, rather than on a detailed examination of the specifics of communicative events and how that may develop our qualitative understanding of how transformative sequences are achieved through help-providers’ and clients’ talk and conduct. Our research topic, therefore, concentrates on qualitative, interaction-focused research and how this work can inform our understanding of transformative sequences as an organized societal practice.
Past interaction-focused work on the helping professions has examined general practices that commonly occur within these helping contexts and especially in psychotherapy. So far, however, little research has addressed important, potential change practices that target referents, emotions or relations, as discussed in Peräkylä (2019). The aim of this Research Topic, therefore, is to bring together researchers and practitioners from an international community to discuss new findings, methodological innovations and practical applications in this growing area of applied Interactional work (e.g., Conversation Analysis, Discursive Psychology, Interactional Linguistics, Linguistic Pragmatics). Much research in this area has been conducted on psychotherapy, but in order to gain a wider and more comprehensive view of how changes in relations, referents and emotions are brought about on the conversational level, other organized helping domains such as counselling, psychiatry, social work, coaching, etc. need to be considered too.
We welcome submissions that align with the Research Topic theme, but papers that address related and relevant aspects of interactional practices used in clinical and more general ‘helping’ contexts will also be considered. Submissions that address relevant neighboring forms of institutional practice to psychotherapy (e.g., psychiatric consultations; psychological assessment; support-oriented help lines, home support visits, coaching and counselling; online or offline) are encouraged. Our theme will be of interest to people from a variety of academic backgrounds (including psychotherapy, counselling, psychiatry, social work, linguistics, psychology, and sociology) and to practitioners from a wide-range of institutional settings who employ therapeutic practices in their work. We are mainly interested in soliciting the following article types: Original Research, Methods, Perspective and Hypothesis and Theory.
Using communicative practices as a means to solve (inter-)personal problems has always been an important facet of the helping professions. Peräkylä’s (2019) paper on ‘transformative sequences’ in psychotherapy has argued that important change events occur on three dimensions that are grounded in conversational practices: relations, referents and emotions. There is much agreement, that – for example – a ‘good’ relationship between help provider and client bears a significant, positive relation to the outcome of the process. Yet, most of the existing research mainly relies on quantitative methods, rather than on a detailed examination of the specifics of communicative events and how that may develop our qualitative understanding of how transformative sequences are achieved through help-providers’ and clients’ talk and conduct. Our research topic, therefore, concentrates on qualitative, interaction-focused research and how this work can inform our understanding of transformative sequences as an organized societal practice.
Past interaction-focused work on the helping professions has examined general practices that commonly occur within these helping contexts and especially in psychotherapy. So far, however, little research has addressed important, potential change practices that target referents, emotions or relations, as discussed in Peräkylä (2019). The aim of this Research Topic, therefore, is to bring together researchers and practitioners from an international community to discuss new findings, methodological innovations and practical applications in this growing area of applied Interactional work (e.g., Conversation Analysis, Discursive Psychology, Interactional Linguistics, Linguistic Pragmatics). Much research in this area has been conducted on psychotherapy, but in order to gain a wider and more comprehensive view of how changes in relations, referents and emotions are brought about on the conversational level, other organized helping domains such as counselling, psychiatry, social work, coaching, etc. need to be considered too.
We welcome submissions that align with the Research Topic theme, but papers that address related and relevant aspects of interactional practices used in clinical and more general ‘helping’ contexts will also be considered. Submissions that address relevant neighboring forms of institutional practice to psychotherapy (e.g., psychiatric consultations; psychological assessment; support-oriented help lines, home support visits, coaching and counselling; online or offline) are encouraged. Our theme will be of interest to people from a variety of academic backgrounds (including psychotherapy, counselling, psychiatry, social work, linguistics, psychology, and sociology) and to practitioners from a wide-range of institutional settings who employ therapeutic practices in their work. We are mainly interested in soliciting the following article types: Original Research, Methods, Perspective and Hypothesis and Theory.
