Abstract
Applying Dialogical Methods for Investigations of Happening of Change (DIHC), this study investigated how children who had been diagnosed with an oppositional defiant or conduct disorder participated in a collaborative post-therapy research interview and talked about their experiences of family therapy. The results showed that the children participated as dialogical partners talking in genuine, emotional, and reflective ways. Encountered as full-membership partners, the children also co-constructed meanings for their sensitive experiences. However, their verbal initiatives and responses appeared in very brief moments and could easily have been missed. The collaborative post-therapy interview offered a safe forum for co-reflection by participants on what they had found useful or difficult in the family therapy process. In this interview setting, the family first listens to reflection by the therapists on the therapy process and their thoughts on some of the family's related sensitive issues. The results indicate that when therapists present themselves as not-knowing, receptive and accountable, therapists may facilitate reflection for all family members, including children.
Highlights
When a family seeking help enters therapy, it is often the case that the family members are unable to precisely describe their most sensitive experiences or their primary concerns
We were interested in exploring, through qualitative analysis, how children who have been diagnosed with a conduct or oppositional defiant disorder participated in joint conversations and talked about their experiences of family therapy in a collaboratively conducted post-therapy research interview
This study applied a qualitative method to investigate how children diagnosed with a conduct-or oppositional defiant disorder participated and talked about their experiences of family therapy in the collaborative post-therapy research interview
Summary
When a family seeking help enters therapy, it is often the case that the family members are unable to precisely describe their most sensitive experiences or their primary concerns. Adults working with children need to attend to nonverbal aspects of communication, such as tone, emotion, and facial expressions, rather than focusing exclusively on the literal content of spoken messages (Gehart, 2007; Gil, 2009) Despite such differences, dialogue with children involves a cocreation of meaning that is key to the therapeutic process (Anderson & Levin, 1997; McDonough & Koch, 2007). Adopting the collaborative stance of not-knowing (Anderson, 2001, 2012; Anderson & Goolishian, 1992; Madsen, 2007) is especially important when working with children This stance implies that the interviewer or therapist, as Gehart (2007) puts it, “avoids certainties” about the child's experience and does not try to understand too quickly but instead allows ideas to emerge through the ongoing dialogue. The families of children who struggle with behavioral problems typically experience dysfunctional family relations, unhappy marital relations, interpersonal conflict and aggression, less participation in activities as a family, and defensive communication patterns, including less warmth, affection, and emotional support, among family members (Hill & Maughan, 2001; Kazdin, 1997, 2005)
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