Developing reflexivity and self-compassion in group psychotherapy: A dialogical and narrative approach

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this paper, we apply dialogical concepts to understand the development of self-reflexivity and self-compassion during psychotherapy. Specifically, we present a study that mapped clients’ voices and explored their changes in group psychotherapy. Thematic narrative analysis was used to study 20 two-hour group therapy sessions of a systemic informed approach. The analysis involved mapping of the voices of each group member, categorizing them as compassionate and/or reflexive and a sequential depiction of the group voices through timelines. The last step of the analysis included studying the development of self-reflexive and self-compassionate voices through time. It showed an important change, not on the number of clients’ self-reflexive voices that appeared during psychotherapy, but mostly on the quality of the self-reflexive voices in favor of voices that were both self-reflexive and self-compassionate. This change seems to take place as a result of the internalization and “rehearsal” of more kind and compassionate voices that appear in the group dialogues. Hence, this study suggests that, in parallel with focusing on the presence and amount of the reflexive processes that occur in psychotherapy, psychotherapy research should also focus on the changes in the quality of these processes, and particularly the development of self-compassion in psychotherapy.