Discourse analysis and psychotherapy: A critical review

This paper aims to render the research literature on discourse analysis of psychotherapy more accessible to researchers and clinicians, and to provide a concise presentation and evaluation of both the usefulness and the implications of this body of research for our understanding of therapy process. Included in the review are studies which use discourse analysis on actual session transcripts. The studies are organized according to the stance they adopt towards psychotherapy, ranging from studies which take for granted psychotherapeutic assumptions and aim to illustrate the discursive basis of therapeutic notions, to studies which take a critical deconstructive stance towards therapy and examine the links between psychotherapy as social practice, wider systems of meaning and institutions. The main issues addressed by the studies reviewed are: the processes of meaning transformation, aspects of the client's subjectivity, the function of the therapist, as well as issues relating to power and the role of wider socio-cultural discourses. The paper discusses the contribution of discourse analysis to our understanding of therapy process and the enhancement of therapy practice, mainly in terms of promoting therapist reflexivity.