What is going to change in psychotherapy? A grounded theory based model of change in psychotherapy as clients describe it
Change in psychotherapy has often been studied in an expert-oriented way. The purpose of this study was to conceptualize change in psychotherapy as clients described it in their free-form writings. The therapist had a double role as a therapist and a researcher. The data consisted of 30 writings by the clients at the end of their long-term therapy. Grounded theory was employed as a substantive theory of change in psychotherapy. The change was conceptualized as the core category “Clarifying one’s own direction”, in which the subcategories were “Learning new things about oneself” and “Improving the quality of life”. The study offers an alternative perspective to traditional expert- and framework-oriented research of psychotherapy and highlights the benefits of client-oriented approach.