Therapy as Discourse

Olga Smoliak is an Associate Professor in Couple and Family Therapy at the University of Guelph, Canada. She uses conversation analysis and discursive psychology to investigate how psychological matters are constituted discursively. Olga has studied interactional methods used in therapy to give advice, collaborate, accomplish therapeutic tasks, and negotiate responsibility for blameworthy conduct. Tom Strong is a Professor, couple and family therapist, and counsellor-educator at the University of Calgary, Canada. Tom researches and writes on the collaborative, critically-informed and practical potentials of discursive approaches to psychotherapy.

• Chapter 1. Introduction to discursive research and discursive therapies; Tom Strong & Olga Smoliak.- Chapter 2. Discourse in psychotherapy: Using words to create therapeutic practice; Jarl Wahlström.- Chapter 3. Researching the discursive construction of subjectivity in psychotherapy; Evrinomy Avdi & Eugenie Georgaca.- Chapter 4. The alliance as a discursive achievement: A conversation analytical perspective; Adam Horvath & Peter Muntigl.- Chapter 5.  Discursive therapies as institutional discourse; Gale Miller.- Chapter 6. Reflexive questions as constructive interventions: A discursive perspective; Joaquin Gaete Silva, Olga Smoliak, & Shari Couture.- Chapter 7. Transforming gender discourse in couple therapy: Researching intersections of societal discourse, emotion, and interaction; Carmen Knudson-Martin, Jessica ChenFeng, Aimee Galick, Elsie Lobo, Sarah K. Samman, & Kirstee Williams.- Chapter 8. Conversation analysis, discourse analysis and psychotherapy research: Overview and methodological potential; Eleftheria Tseliou.- Chapter 9. Discourse ethics in therapeutic encounters; Olga Smoliak, Tom Strong, & Robert Elliott.- Chapter 10. Discursive research from an assimilation model perspective; William Stiles.