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This article presents an intensive analysis of a good outcome case of constructivist grief therapy with a bereaved mother, using the Innovative Moments Coding System (IMCS). Inspired by White and Epston’s narrative therapy, the IMCS conceptualizes therapeutic change as resulting from the elaboration and expansion of unique outcomes (or as we prefer, innovative moments), referring to experiences not predicted by the problematic or dominant self-narrative. The IMCS identifies and tracks the occurrence of 5 different types of innovative moments: action, reflection, protest, reconceptualization, and performing change. Results documented the process of meaning reconstruction over the six sessions of treatment, and demonstrated the feasibility and reliability of analyzing narrative change in this form of grief therapy, opening it to comparison with other approaches.

Despite the popularity of narrative approaches to the change in psychotherapy, a better understanding of how narrative transformation facilitates therapeutic change is needed. Research on innovative moments (IMs) has explored how IMs in psychotherapy evolve over time. We expand upon past studies by exploring how IMs become aggregated in narrative threads, termed protonarratives, which come to constitute an alternative self-narrative at the conclusion of therapy. The results suggest that the good outcome case had a different pattern of IM integration within protonarratives, revealing greater flexibility than the poor outcome case. These results support the heuristic value of the concept of the protonarrative.

This article presents an intensive case analysis of a good outcome case of emotion-focused therapy – the case of Lisa – using the Innovative Moments Coding System (IMCS). The IMCS, influenced by White’s narrative therapy, conceptualizes narrative change as resulting from the elaboration and expansion of narrative exceptions or unique outcomes to a client’s core problematic self-narrative. The IMCS identifies and tracks the occurrence of 5 different types of narrative change: action, reflection, protest, re-conceptualization, and performing change. This is the first attempt to use the IMCS with cases outside the narrative tradition. We discuss the results, emphasizing the commonalities and major differences between this case and other good outcome cases.

Previous studies have used the Innovative Moments Coding System (IMCS) to describe the process of change in Narrative Therapy (NT) and in Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT). This study aims to extend this research program to a sample of Client-Centered Therapy (CCT). The IMCS was applied to six cases of CCT for depression to track the Innovative Moments (IMs) which are exceptions to the problematic self-narrative in therapeutic conversation. Results suggest that IMCS can be applied to CCT, allowing the tracking of IMs' emergence. The analysis based on a generalized linear model revealed that the overall amount of IMs is significantly associated with symptom improvement, which is congruent with former studies done with the IMCS.

The aim of this study was to advance understanding of how clients construct their own process of change in effective therapy sessions. Toward this end, the authors applied a narrative methodological tool for the study of the change process in emotion-focused therapy (EFT), replicating a previous study done with narrative therapy (NT). The Innovative Moments Coding System (IMCS) was applied to three good-outcome and three poor-outcome cases in EFT for depression to track the innovative moments (IMs), or exceptions to the problematic self-narrative, in the therapeutic conversation. IMCS allows tracking of five types of IMs events: action, reflection, protest, reconceptualization, and performing change. The analysis revealed significant differences between the good-outcome and poor-outcome groups regarding reconceptualization and performing change IMs, replicating the findings from a previous study. Reconceptualization and performing change IMs seem to be vital in the change process.

Innovative moments (IMs) are exceptions to a client's problematic self-narrative in the therapeutic dialogue. The innovative moments coding system is a tool which tracks five different types of IMs-action, reflection, protest, reconceptualization and performing change. An in-depth qualitative analysis of six therapeutic cases of emotion-focused therapy (EFT) investigated the role of two of the most common IMs-reflection and protest-in both good and poor outcome cases. Through this analysis two subtypes (I and II) of reflection and protest IMs were identified, revealing different evolution patterns. Subtype II of both reflection and protest IMs is significantly higher in the good outcome group, while subtype I of both IMs types does not present statistically significant differences between groups. The evolution from subtype I to subtype II across the therapeutic process seems to reflect a relevant developmental progression in the change process.

Ambivalence can be understood as a cyclical movement between an emerging narrative novelty-an Innovative Moment (IM)-and a return to a problematically dominant self-narrative. The return implies that the IM, with its potential for change is devalued right after its emergence. Our goal is to test the hypothesis that the probability of the client expressing such form of ambivalence decreases across treatment in good-outcome cases but not in poor-outcome cases.

This article presents a method for the assessment of innovative moments, which are novelties that emerge in contrast to a client's problematic self-narrative as expressed in therapy, the innovative moments coding system (IMCS). The authors discuss the theoretical background of the IMCS as well as its coding procedures. Results from several studies suggest that the IMCS is a reliable and valid coding system that can be applied to several modalities of psychotherapy. Finally, future research implications are discussed.

Our aim was to explore the development of innovative moments (i-moments) in therapeutic conversation and to study how they match our heuristic model that accounts for the development of change, drawn from previous empirical research.

Aims: To analyze a poor outcome case of narrative therapy with a woman victim of intimate violence. Method: The Innovative Moments Coding System: version 1 was applied to all sessions to track the innovative moments (i-moments) in the therapeutic conversation. I–moments are the narrative details that occur in psychotherapeutic conversations that are outside the influence of the problematic narrative. This research aims to describe the processes involved in meanings’ stability along psychotherapy through a dialogical approach to meaning making. Results: Contrarily to what usually occurs in good outcome cases, re-conceptualization i-moments are absent. Moreover, two specific types of i-moments emerged with higher duration: reflection and protest. Qualitative analysis showed that the potential meanings of these i-moments were surpassed by a return to the problematic narrative. Conclusion: The therapeutic stability seems to be maintained by a systematic return to the problematic narrative after the emergence of novelties, a process that was referred from a dialogical perspective as a mutual in-feeding of voices (Valsiner, 2002), one that emerges in the i-moment and another one that supports the problematic narrative. The problematic narrative is maintained by an oscillation between these two types of voices along therapy.