Psychotherapy as a discursive genre: A dialogic approach

Abstract

This study seeks to display therapeutic dialogue as a discursive genre. By using dialogic discourse analysis, the psychotherapeutic dialogue present in a set of excerpts from a time-limited psychotherapy is analyzed. This micro analytical methodology makes it possible to account for both the dialogal and the dialogic level of therapeutic conversation. The results show the linguistics markers employed by the participants and the voices in their speech. This enables us to illustrate how it is possible to perform a discursive analysis of therapeutic interaction. The value of approaching psychotherapy as a discursive genre and its methodological implications for research are discussed.