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Journal of Constructivist Psychology
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Narrative Therapy and the Nature Of “Innovative Moments” in the Construction
of Change
Miguel M. Gonçalves a; Marlene Matos a; Anita Santos a
a University of Minho, Portugal
Online Publication Date: 01 January 2009
To cite this Article Gonçalves, Miguel M., Matos, Marlene and Santos, Anita(2009)'Narrative Therapy and the Nature Of “Innovative
Moments” in the Construction of Change',Journal of Constructivist Psychology,22:1,1 — 23
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Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 22:1–23, 2009
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ISSN: 1072-0537 print / 1521-0650 online
DOI: 10.1080/10720530802500748
NARRATIVE THERAPY AND THE NATURE
OF “INNOVATIVE MOMENTS” IN THE CONSTRUCTION
OF CHANGE
MIGUEL M. GONC¸ ALVES, MARLENE MATOS, and ANITA SANTOS
University of Minho, Portugal
In the narrative metaphor of psychotherapy, clients transform themselves by
changing their life stories. According to White and Epston (1990), the construc-
tion of change occurs from the expansion of unique outcomes—or innovative
moments, as we prefer to call them—that is, the development of episodes outside
the problem-saturated narrative. Unique outcomes operate as exceptions to the
rule (i.e., to the problem-saturated story) that can be changed to a new rule (i.e.,
a new narrative). We suggest that some forms of unique outcomes can operate
as shadow voices (Gustafson, 1992) of the problem-saturated story, allowing a
temporary release from the problem, but facilitating a return to it. In our view,
there is a particular type of unique outcome—reconceptualization—that facili-
tates sustained change. This kind of innovation facilitates the emergence of a
meta-level perspective about the change process itself and, in turn, enables the
active positioning of the person as an author of the new narrative.
As every therapist knows, whatever his or her theoretical
orientation, clients bring stories of their lives to psychotherapy.
According to the narrative metaphor of psychotherapy (see
Hermans & Hermans-Jansen, 1995; Parry & Doan, 1994; Omer &
Alon, 1997; White & Epston, 1990), clients transform themselves
by changing the stories they tell about their lives. This metaphor
of the person as a narrator has inspired a diversity of changes in
the way psychotherapy is conceived and practiced. Documenting
this growing interest, several handbooks (see Angus & McLeod,
2004; Hermans & Dimmaggio, 2004; Hoyt, 1998; Lieblich,
Received 16 October 2006; accepted 6 June 2007.
The authors are grateful to Jaan Valsiner, Michael Guilfoyle, Carla Machado, three
anonymous reviewers, and Robert A. Neimeyer for their comments on the first draft of this
article. The authors are also grateful to Gena Rodrigues for helping with the language. This
article was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT),
by Grant PTDC/PSI/72846/2006 (Narrative Processes in Psychotherapy).
Address correspondence to Miguel M. Gonc¸alves, Department of Psychology, Uni-
versity of Minho, 4710 Braga, Portugal. E-mail: mgoncalves@iep.uminho.pt
1
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2M. M. Gonc¸alves et al.
McAdams, & Josselson, 2004; Neimeyer & Raskin, 2000) have
been published in this field from a variety of clinical orientations
(e.g., cognitive, constructivist, and family therapy).
In this article, we will further explore this metaphor of the
client as a storyteller, from the perspective of one of the most
influential types of narrative therapy, the reauthoring model of
White and Epston (1990). We will reflect on the way change is
pictured in this model, and the concept of “unique outcome” as a
window of opportunity for the construction of new narratives will
be discussed. We also analyze the central ideas of narrative ther-
apy from a dialogical perspective (Hermans & Kempen, 1993),
highlighting the dialogical processes behind the narrative con-
tent. We stress the heterogeneous nature of unique outcomes, sug-
gesting that not all of them have the same potency (Giacomo &
Weissmark, 1987) for the construction of new narratives or the
capacity to evoke sustained change.
Persons as Narrators
In psychology for quite some time, there has been an effort to
understand human lives from a narrative perspective (Bruner,
1986; McAdams, 1993; Polkinghorne, 1988; Sarbin, 1986), in
which the identity of the person is the result of his or her efforts
to make meaning out of an almost infinite amount of episodes
that comprise life. According to Sarbin’s seminal work and his
“narratory principle ... human beings think, perceive, imagine,
and make moral choices according to narrative structures”
(1986, p. 8). Sarbin also proposed a rereading of the distinction
proposed by James (1890) between the I and the Me. The I is
the author, while the Me is the actor of the narrative. In this
metaphor of the self, the person’s agency is revealed in the
authorship process: it is the person who narrates the life that is
lived (and performed as an actor).
These narrative ideas have been the target of further de-
velopment in two main fields: narrative therapy and dialogical
self-theories. From one side, narrative therapy has produced a
rich diversity of therapeutic strategies and applications (e.g.,
Brown & Augusta-Scott, 2007; Freedman & Combs, 1996; Strong
&Par
´
e, 2004; White, 2004), after the seminal book from White
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Narrative Therapy and the Nature of “Innovative Moments” 3
and Epston (1990). On the other, dialogical perspectives have
been exploring, in the therapeutic field, how their principles
can be applied to the understanding of psychopathology and
psychotherapy (e.g., Hermans & Dimaggio, 2004; Lysaker &
Lysaker, 2006; Osatuke & Stiles, 2006).
The connection between narrative and dialogical processes
is strengthened by the idea that life narratives can be conceived
as the outcome of dialogical processes of negotiation, tension,
disagreement, alliance, and so on, between different voices (or
perspectives) of the self. As Hermans suggested (Hermans &
Kempen, 1993), individuals have the role of authors narrating
their own stories. Therefore, narratives of life are multifaceted
and multivocal (with different voices; see Hermans, 1996). For
Hermans (1996), a dialogical perspective of the distinction made
by Sarbin between the author and the actor of the narrative means
that the person’s self is a multitude of authors (or I positions)
narrating their stories while enacting as actors these different po-
sitions. Each voice or I position can tell a story from its own per-
spective, and this transforms the self into a space of potentiality, in
which the meaning is constructed and reconstructed as different
positions gain or lose power.
In these dynamic struggles between voices, a dialogical dis-
ruption can occur when the diversity of voices collapses into
the monologue of a single voice. The other voices of the
self are silenced, making different constructions of the events
difficult or even impossible. Accordingly, in these narratives,
the construction of reality is characterized by redundancy and
loss of complexity. The experiential diversity is rejected or ig-
nored, and the narrative outcome reflects this reduction of voice
variety.
In the narrative therapy field this is akin to White’s (White
& Epston, 1990; see also Freedman & Combs, 1996) problem-
saturated stories, given that all other accounts and possibilities, be-
sides the problematic one, are undermined. These narratives im-
pose strong constraints to life, excluding all the experiential pos-
sibilities outside the problem-saturated story. Thus, for instance, if
a person narrates him- or herself as depressed, he or she is blind
to all other possibilities (e.g., situations in which he or she feels,
thinks or behaves differently). All the episodes from his or her
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4M. M. Gonc¸alves et al.
life are a further proof that he or she is a depressed person, and
in this way the problem occupies the whole identity. This author
(I as depressed person) constrains the person to live life accord-
ing to this plot.
However, as Bakhtin (2000) suggested, this attempt to sup-
press the other (external or internalized) is never totally accom-
plished, given the dialogical nature of existence (see Fogel, 1993;
Gonc¸alves & Guilfoyle, 2006; Salgado & Gonc¸alves, 2007; Valsiner,
2004). So, in fact, instead of monologism, we should talk about
attempts to suppress dialogism, given the impossibility of achiev-
ing a situation of total monologism. Similarly, White and Epston
(1990) suggested that life is more than what is narrated, which
means that in life there are episodes outside the domination of
the problem-saturated story that need to gain voice in order for a
new story to unfold. Thus, this impossibility to achieve a complete
monological situation is akin, in the narrative therapy models, to
the idea that there are always exceptions to the problem-saturated
narrative, which these authors call “unique outcomes” (see White
& Epston, 1990).
This acknowledgment of the way voices emerge out of the
dominant narrative plot and their development in psychother-
apy into an emergent position has also been extensively studied
by Stiles and his colleagues (Honos-Webb & Stiles, 1998; Stiles,
1999; Stiles et al., 1990, 1992). These authors developed a model
in which change is depicted through a process of assimilation of
voices, drawing upon a narrative framework and a dialogical ap-
proach (Honos-Webb & Stiles, 1998), in which narratives act like
“meaning bridges—the semiotic glue that holds our experience
together” (Osatuke et al., 2004, p. 194). Therefore, the assimila-
tion model aims to describe change processes in psychotherapy
through qualitative narrative analysis, entailing a dialogical view
of self.
In this article we will address two main questions. The first
is how new narratives are constructed from problem-saturated
narratives—or, to put it in a dialogical frame, how monological or
rigid narratives become dialogical in therapy. The second related
question will address how unique outcomes facilitate the produc-
tion of preferred identity narratives in psychotherapy. Our start-
ing point is the narrative therapy tradition, and our final aim is to
contribute a new coding system of therapeutic sessions that can
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Narrative Therapy and the Nature of “Innovative Moments” 5
allow empirical research into these processes: the Innovative Mo-
ments Coding System (Gonc¸alves, Matos, & Santos, 2007).
Unique Outcomes and Change
According to narrative therapy, the construction of new and pre-
ferred narratives of life is the result of the elaboration of unique
outcomes. What defines a unique outcome (UO) is the emer-
gence of something that was not predicted by a dominant story
(White & Epson, 1990) and that is different from the way the
client usually narrates him- or herself.
Unique outcomes are considered openings to new stories,
and in this way, they are opportunities for therapeutic change
to occur. The term, borrowed from Goffman (1961), is some-
what unfortunate, because, as de Shazer (1991) pointed out, the
idea of “unique” suggests that it happens only once. But in fact,
the proposal of White and Epston (1990) was that UOs are al-
ways happening but are trivialized and ignored by people when
problem-saturated stories are very active. Also, the term “out-
come” seems to emphasize the idea of an output instead of the
processes behind change. However, the idea of UOs (or per-
haps more poetically, sparkling moments) is used in the narra-
tive therapy tradition as a way to emphasize the small but sig-
nificant changes in the narrative text; and in this sense, they
are outcomes (or markers) in the narrative development of
novelty.
Freedman and Combs (1996), following White and Epson’s
original work, suggested that in the construction of a new plot in
psychotherapy, outside the problem-saturated story, the therapist
should emphasize the conversation around UOs in the landscape
of action and connect these with the ones in the landscape of con-
sciousness (using a distinction made by Bruner, 1986). For Bruner
(1986) a good story is made in this dual landscape, the landscape
of action including the setting, the actors, and the actions, while
the landscape of consciousness refers to how actors feel, know,
and think. The UOs in the landscape of action are events involv-
ing actions or, as Freedman and Combs (2002) suggested, answers
the question, “What happened, in what sequence, involving which
characters?” (p. 318). When therapist and client step back and
talk about the meanings involved in these UO sequences, they are
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6M. M. Gonc¸alves et al.
constructing the story in the landscape of consciousness. Here,
they can guide the conversation toward intentions, desires, values,
or beliefs. Freedman and Combs (1996) proposed a therapeutic
structure in which the therapist promotes the consolidation of a
new story through the questioning of UOs between elements in
the landscape of action and elements in the landscape of con-
sciousness, as well as making connections between past, present
and future UOs.
According to these authors, this process leads to the trans-
formation of UOs into new stories and new meanings. Metaphor-
ically, one can say that these three dimensions—time, action, and
consciousness—act like vectors in a narrative matrix, transform-
ing isolated episodes into an alternative life story that challenges
the problematic story. Thus, in the conversation, therapists and
clients need to develop these dimensions (landscape of action
and landscape of consciousness along different time frames) for a
new story to develop and become a viable alternative to the story
saturated by the problem. A time frame is vital for the develop-
ment of a coherent narrative. But a temporal dimension alone
is not enough for a good story to unfold; one also needs actions
and emotions, values and thoughts, as well as other elements from
both landscapes of action and consciousness. These elements are
central for a story to become meaningful and plausible for the
person who is constructing and living it, as these constructions
further evolve.
What makes this elaboration of novelties so meaningful in
narrative therapy is the assumption that what is not narrated be-
comes irrelevant and is easily forgotten or trivialized (see Freed-
man & Combs, 1996; White & Epston, 1990; Winslade & Monk,
1999). However, as every narrative therapist also knows, some-
times the effort to develop UOs into alternative stories is not
enough for change to happen; otherwise, the therapist’s task
would be a simple one. So one can say that change happens
through the elaboration of UOs (necessary condition), but this
elaboration could be insufficient for change to take place.
Dialogically, UOs are opportunities for new voices to gain
power to tell their own stories, different from the voice of the
dominant story. With other voices or perspectives clamoring to
be heard, the problematic narrative cannot maintain its authori-
tarian status.
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Narrative Therapy and the Nature of “Innovative Moments” 7
Heterogeneous Nature of Unique Outcomes
Despite the differences traced between landscape of action and
landscape of consciousness, or the distinction between past,
present, and future UOs, there is, to our knowledge, no theo-
retical reflection about the influence of the diversity of UOs on
change. What if there are different kinds of UOs that are related
to different patterns of change? This is the question we will ex-
plore in this section of the article.
In a previous research study we completed with women who
were victims of partner’s abuse (Matos, 2006; Matos & Gonc¸alves,
2004), we found that different kinds of UOs emerge in their sto-
ries. In this study we coded the therapeutic sessions for the emer-
gence of UOs, in good and poor outcome narrative therapy, try-
ing to find what types of unique outcomes emerged. We identified
five different types of UOs: action, reflection, protest, reconceptu-
alization, and new experiences UOs. Given the problems referred
to before with this designation, we will call them from now on
innovative moments (IMs). This typology of IMs will allow us to de-
velop process research in psychotherapy that pays close attention
to the emergence of these novelties and to the way these allow the
development of a new life narrative. Here we define the various
types of IMs and offer an illustration of each drawn from thera-
pies addressing a variety of presenting problems.
1. Action IMs involve specific actions against the problem-
atic story. In the study referred to above, all the actions initiated
against or to prevent the abuse were in this category.
Clinical Vignette
T (therapist): Was it difficult for you to take this step [not accepting
the rules of “fear” and going out]?
C (client): Yes, it was a huge step. For the last several months I barely
got out. Even coming to therapy was a major challenge.
I felt really powerless going out. I have to prepare myself
really well to be able to do this.
2. Reflection IMs involve the emergence of new understand-
ings or thoughts that are not congruent with the dominant plot.
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8M. M. Gonc¸alves et al.
The cognitive challenge of the problem, seeing new perspectives
of the problem, and defying cultural prescription that facilitates
the development of the problematic narrative are examples of
these IMs.
Clinical Vignette
C: I’m starting to wonder about what my life will be like if I keep
feeding my depression.
T: It’s becoming clear that depression has a hidden agenda for
your life?
C: Yes, sure.
T: What is it that depression wants from you?
C: It wants to rule my whole life, and in the end it wants to steal
my life from me.
3. Protest IMs are present when there is some sort of protest
against the problem and its specifications and also against the
persons who are somehow the problem’s supporters. It can be
an action (as in action IM) or even a thought (as in reflection
IM), but protest IMs are more than a mere action or thought, as
they involve a way of repositioning the self, and through this, a
more proactive process can emerge (e.g., deciding something rel-
evant about the problem that reduces its power over the client’s
life). As an example, we can consider a woman who tells her-
self or others that she will no longer accept the responsibility for
abuse and says that her partner should always be responsible for
his actions, independently of the supposed “provocations” he saw
in her.
Clinical Vignette
C: I talked about it just to demonstrate what I’ve been doing until now,
fighting for it ...
T: Fighting against the idea that you should do what your parents
thought was good for you?
C: I was trying to change myself all the time, to please them. But
now I’m getting tired, I am realizing that it doesn’t make any sense
to make this effort.
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Narrative Therapy and the Nature of “Innovative Moments” 9
T: That effort keeps you in a position of changing yourself all the
time, the way you feel and think ...
C: Yes, sure. And I’m really tired of that. I can’t stand it anymore. After
all, parents are supposed to love their children and not judge them
all the time.
4. Reconceptualization IMs involve a kind of meta-reflection
level, meaning that the person not only understands what is dif-
ferent in her or him, but also is able to describe the processes
involved in the transformation. These IMs involve three compo-
nents: the self in the past (problematic narrative), the self in
the present, and the description of the processes that allowed
the transformation from the past to the present. While reflec-
tion IMs are related to novelty in terms of a thinking episode or
moment (related to the past, present, or future) that is outside
the prescription of the dominant story, reconceptualization IMs
are associated with the narration of a meta-reflection process in-
volved in change. Thus, the client not only understands some-
thing new but can also establish a distinction from a previous
condition.
Clinical Vignette (victim of partner abuse)
C: I think I started enjoying myself again. I had a time ... I think I’ve
stopped in time. I’ve always been a person that liked myself. There
was a time ...maybe because of my attitude, because of all that was
happening, I think there was a time that I was not respecting myself
... despite the effort to show that I wasn’t feeling ...so well with
myself. ... I couldn’t feel that joy of living, that I recovered now ...
and now I keep thinking, “You have to move on and get your life
back.”
T: This position of “you have to move on” has been decisive?
C: That was important. I felt so weak at the beginning! I hated feeling
like that. ... Today I think “I’m not weak.” In fact, maybe I am very
strong, because of all that happened to me. I can still see the
good side of people and I don’t think I’m being na¨
ıve. ... Now
when I look at myself, I think, “No, you can really make a
difference, and you have value as a person.” For a while I couldn’t
have this dialogue with myself, I couldn’t say, “You can do it” nor
even think, “I am good at this or that”...
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10 M. M. Gonc¸alves et al.
5. New experience IMs refer to the anticipation or planning of
new experiences, projects, or activities. In these IMs the client may
apply newly learned skills to new experiences, get back to former
and abandoned projects and activities, or think about what she
has learned with the problematic story that could make the next
change in her life meaningful.
Clinical Vignette
T: You seem to have so many projects for the future now!
C: Yes, you’re right. I want to do all the things that were impossible
for me to do while I was dominated by fear. I want to work again
and to have the time to enjoy my life with my children. I want to
have friends again. The loss of all the friendships of the past is
something that still hurts me really deeply. I want to have friends
again, to have people to talk to, to share experiences, and to feel
the complicity of others in my life again.
This taxonomy of IMs is different from the classification
of UOs in the landscape of action and the landscape of con-
sciousness, previously provided by narrative therapy. These new
categories do not neatly fit in this differentiation. Thus, while
the action IM type clearly belongs to the landscape of action
and reflection IMs to the landscape of consciousness, the other
three categories identified are simultaneously rooted in both
landscapes, as they involve some kind of actions, but also val-
ues, intentions, and feelings. Thus, protest, reconceptualization,
and future experiences are, from a narrative perspective, more
complex IMs.1
Innovative Moments Processes and Patterns of Change
in Psychotherapy
We will now suggest some hypotheses, which are still conditional
regarding the nature of therapeutic change, seen through the
perspective of the patterns of IMs described above. We consider
that the diversity of IMs is related to different processes involved
in the psychotherapeutic process.
It seems unlikely that self-change happens in conjunction
with only one type of IM. In the reauthoring process, the de-
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Narrative Therapy and the Nature of “Innovative Moments” 11
velopment of a coherent, thick description of the experience of
change emerges by the articulation of several different kinds of
IMs. Thus, for instance, a new narrative constructed only with ac-
tion IMs would be an impoverished (and monotonous) type of
story. The same can be said of any other IM.
Action and reflection are the most elementary IMs, as they
involve actions and thoughts that can be simple and subtle events.
They could facilitate therapeutic transformation functioning as
good “examples” that change is happening (or at least that a new
movement is starting). The diversity and high frequency of these
IMs can also work as ways of validating change—they could be
signs for the self and for others that something different is in fact
taking place. We think, however, that by themselves they cannot
allow the movement toward a new narrative of the self, as we will
discuss below.
Protest IM are interesting because they imply the creation of
a rhetorical space between the person and the problem, which
allows the separation of the person from the problem. If one
protests against the problem but sees the problem as something
that is “the same as me” (an internalized view of problems), the
movement of protest can be felt as dangerous toward the self. Ac-
tually, this movement happens quite often but, far from leading
to change, leads to a process of self-blaming and self-critique that
is typical of problem-saturated stories.
When the person is able to protest against the problem,
separating the problem from him- or herself, this could be an
important moment in the change process. Thus, these IMs are
powerful, as they imply not only resistance but also a reappre-
ciation of the client’s position in relation to the problem. They
are active ways of showing the self and others that people want
something different in their life. It seems, however, that some IMs
of this kind can engage the person in protest without expanding
the meaning of it (e.g., to disobey when one is incapable of tol-
erating the abuse, to obey later when one somehow accepts the
imposition).
Perhaps the main problem with these three types of IM (ac-
tion, reflection, and protest) is the possibility that they become a
mere opposition to the problem without creating new meanings
outside the semiotic duality problem–no problem. If this happens,
the problem is present even when it is absent, as the meaning of
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12 M. M. Gonc¸alves et al.
“no problem” requires the meaning of the “problem,” as we will
discuss below.
Reconceptualization is a complex type of IM, as it implies a
kind of meta-position over change. These IMs involve a reflexive
position toward the change process—the person is not only an
actor of that process but also its author (to use the distinction
made by Sarbin, 1986). Without this meta-perspective, the person
could only be an actor who lacks access to the processes that are
beneath the plot; it is the access to these processes that allows him
or her to be an author or his or her own life. We are not referring
here to an “access” to something more fundamental or more real,
as these processes beneath the plot are constructed as the new
narrative develops, so in a sense they are invented, not discovered.
We are simply stating that for these IMs to occur the person has
to have some form of decentering from him- or herself and to be
able to reflect about the creation of a new plot. This implies a
meta-level from which the person can see the difference between
the old plot and the (anticipated) new one, and from this position
favors the development of the new story.
It is this decentering that allows the person to obtain more
than a mere substitution of one narrative for another. If the client
does not have access to the processes of transformation, we would
only have the substitution of a monological narrative for another
one (albeit perhaps less harmful at that moment). These IMs
allow the movement of change to be continued in the future.
Also, without this access, a collaborative position with the thera-
pist would be difficult, if not impossible, as client and therapist
would be unable to step back and reflect about the change pro-
cess and the client’s authorship.
Because of its nature, reconceptualization cannot be a mere
negation of the problem, as it implies the creation of new semiotic
dimensions outside the duality of problem–no problem. Although
this meta-position is necessary, action, reflection, and protest IMs
can have the role of narrative markers, signaling that change is on
its way, given that they represent new actions and new thoughts
outside the problem-saturated narrative. The emerging reconcep-
tualization IM enables the client to examine and somehow evalu-
ate the flow of other IMs (action, protest, and reflection). Then,
meaningful connections between these moments of change are
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Narrative Therapy and the Nature of “Innovative Moments” 13
enacted and a new comprehension of the process of change is
achieved. Reconceptualization allows a narrative to have structure
(e.g., coherence, organization, and complexity) by the way it or-
ganizes the other emergent IMs.
In our view, reconceptualization is crucial for the change pro-
cess. In the construction of a new narrative it acts like a grav-
itational field that attracts and gives meaning to action, reflec-
tion, and protest IMs. These reconceptualization IMs expand fur-
ther through the elaboration of other IMs, which act as inter-
nal validations that change is taking place. We refer to internal
validation in the sense that they are intrinsic to the narrative it-
self. In other words, they are markers or “proofs” of plausibility,
as they allow new episodes to emerge that are congruent with a
new state. The importance of what we have termed reconceptu-
alization also emerges in research done by Angus and colleagues
(2004) with the Narrative Process Model. Their reflexive narra-
tive sequences are similar to our reconceptualization; the main
difference occurs because we only code in our sessions the IMs,
while Angus and colleagues code all of the sequences where the
reflexive mode emerges. Nevertheless, they also conclude, “the
reflexive decentering from and then reengagement with distress-
ing life experiences ... facilitates the articulation of new under-
standings about the self in relation to others (Angus et al., 2004,
p. 90).
Reconceptualization IMs are also akin to what Hermans
(2003) called a metaposition, a position from where the other I po-
sitions can be seen and evaluated (see also Dimaggio et al., 2003).
In fact, in order to code this IM, as we referred to before, two
positions need to be present—the former self and the emergent
self—which means that somehow a meta-position over the former
two is needed.
Finally, new experiences IMs represent the expansion of
the story into the future. As Crites (1986) suggested, a narra-
tive without a future is one that has no time and allows no
change. One needs to be able to imagine future selves in order
for the movement into the future to take place (Valsiner, 2006).
As Valsiner (2004) proposed, “The person is constantly creating
meaning ahead of the time when it might be needed—orienting
oneself towards one or another side of anticipated experience,
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14 M. M. Gonc¸alves et al.
and thus preparing oneself for it” (p. 14). In our view, for
the story to be expanded into the future, a meta-position like
the one that reconceptualization allows is needed to imagine
a future with other possibilities outside the problem-saturated
narrative.
We therefore suggest that change happens in a cyclical pro-
cess, which could start with action, reflection, and/or protest
IMs, as signs for the person and significant others that some-
thing different is happening. The next movement in the cy-
cle could be reconceptualization, allowing the person to step
back and see him- or herself changing. Several movements
from action, reflection, and protest through reconceptualiza-
tion, and back again to action, reflection, and protest, could
be needed to validate change, before the person is able to
project him- or herself into the future with a secure narrative,
which could certainly entail a new process of internal validation
(see Figure 1).
Each cycle could be amplified by the validation of sig-
nificant others, which could trigger new cycles of novelty
exploration.
Of course, other lines of development are plausible, and we
need to research the different possibilities of change. For in-
stance, the client might start with a glimpse of a new narrative
(reconceptualization IM) and from there develop the more con-
crete action and reflection IMs.
In our proposal, independent of the “starting point” (action,
protest, or reflection), a new gestalt of IM is necessary for a mean-
ingful story to develop, and this gestalt unfolds in a cyclical pro-
cess, similar to the one described in Figure 1, although that path
is not the only one possible. We also think reconceptualization is
necessary to allow the person to achieve a position of authorship
in the self-narrative.
We would like to emphasize that the new narrative is not
something of a different nature from the diversity of IMs (despite
what the representation in Figure 1 can suggest). The new nar-
rative is a pattern that emerges from the variety of IMs that were
explored in the therapeutic conversation—in other words, it is an
emergent propriety of the IMs.
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FIGURE 1 IMs and the creation of a new narrative.
15
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16 M. M. Gonc¸alves et al.
Action, Reflection, and Protest IMs: Dialogical Processes
in Monological Narratives
A dialogical perspective allows us to understand why isolated ac-
tion, reflection, and protest could be associated with conditions
that represent a failure to change. It is our hypothesis that ac-
tion, reflection, and protest IMs have the potential to transform
narratives when they interact with reconceptualization IMs, as we
have described above, but that they could have the effect of sup-
porting the problem when reconceptualization is absent. To make
this clear, we need to return to the concept of monological nar-
rative (in the terms of narrative therapy, the problem-saturated
story).
It is our proposal that instead of being monological, problem-
saturated narratives can involve, in fact, a situation of mutual in-
feeding (see Valsiner, 2002), in which two voices are related to
each other in a circular feedback loop (see Figure 2). These highly
ambivalent relations promote the maintenance of a dynamic sta-
bility within self’s voices and can lead to an irresolvable dilemma.
In these situations, the problematic narrative is dominated by a
double voice, in which the second voice works as a shadow of the
first. Gustafson (1992, see also Omer, 1994) suggested a similar
process responsible for the maintenance of these stories in which
the only alternative to the main story is a shadow story: “these
FIGURE 2 Mutual in-feeding (Valsiner, 2002) in action, reflection, and protest
IMs.
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Narrative Therapy and the Nature of “Innovative Moments” 17
stories seem inescapable because what is viewed as the only alter-
native (the shadow story) turns out to be a loop that reintroduces
the main line” (Omer, 1994, p. 47).
That is the case, for example, of a person who is constrained
by his or her phobia (i.e., a problem-saturated story) and dreams
about an unrealistic freedom (i.e., a reflection IM). When this
second voice of unrealistic dreams is given power and becomes
dominant, if action follows from it (a counter-phobic reaction),
the person is crushed by feelings of impotence and loss of protec-
tion, which, of course, makes the first voice (of the phobia) dom-
inant and less aversive than before. Another example would be
the depressed client who oscillates between the voice of depres-
sion (i.e., a problem-saturated story) and the voice of “true and
definitive happiness” (another reflection IM). Each time the voice
of depression gains power, the voice of happiness becomes active,
bringing with it the implausibility of the move from depression to
happiness, which only makes the former voice stronger. When the
voice of depression becomes more powerful, the person dreams
again of a state of happiness, and so on.
Dialogically, there is a voice and a counter-voice that freeze
the system of meanings. So, in this example—and contrary to the
intuition of White and Epston (1990), which saw UOs as always
beneficial—one specific IM actually feeds the problem. It is the
oscillating movement between this reflection IM and the prob-
lem that makes change impossible. Valsiner (2004) referred to
this dance as a clear example of hidden dialogism, in the sense that
there seems to only be one position or voice, but in fact an os-
cillation between two clashing voices is happening (the M¨
obius
strip could be used as a concrete representation of this process;
see Josephs, Valsiner, & Surgan, 1999).
An interesting path for research would be to try to under-
stand if the large majority of rigid or problem-saturated narratives
are monological, without any change in meaning, or narratives in
which a situation of mutual in-feeding keeps the meaning system
in a perpetual movement between the problem and its “solution.”2
If we analyze the above examples of mutual in-feeding
through our typology of IMs, we see that the shadow voice involves
reflection (dreams about a life without difficulties or dreams
about absolute freedom) and action (counter-phobic reactions)
IMs.
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18 M. M. Gonc¸alves et al.
It is also our suggestion that action and reflection IMs can op-
erate in women who are victims of partner violence (the sample
from which we have tracked the different IMs) as shadow voices
of oppression. In these cases, action and reflection IMs can al-
low an oscillatory movement away from the problem, but the full
consequences of this movement are not explored and the per-
son returns to the prior position. It is perhaps because of these
oscillatory movements that the temporary abandonment of the
partner is so common in these situations. In fact, several stud-
ies have demonstrated that half of all attempts to exit an abusive
relationship later result in reunion with the aggressor (e.g., An-
derson & Saunders, 2003; Lerner & Kennedy, 2000; Martin et al.,
2000). From our perspective, these attempts to exit the relation-
ship could be classified as action IMs. In this case, the problem
and these IMs’ interactions may be supporting the maintenance
of the same situation over and over again—that is, to continue in
the abusive relationship.
Some forms of protest can also act as shadow voices of the
problem, like some forms of defiance of the problem-saturated
narrative. An example of this kind of protest would be a woman re-
fusing to do something the partner ordered, without other forms
of elaboration. We are not suggesting that it is bad to refuse what a
violent partner wants; but without further elaboration, this action
is likely to fail the creation of significant change. If the woman
elaborates this further, it can turn into different forms of protest
(e.g., public repositioning toward culturally dominant values) or
even to reconceptualization, something like, “In the past I did
what he asked me to do all the time, but now I have discovered
X” (something about her life that allows her to keep exploring
the novelties of a new way of being).
In summary, without the creation of a meta-position (recon-
ceptualization IM) from which the person can expand and ex-
plore the meanings of action, reflection, and protest IMs, these
can act as an invitation to return to the problem. In other words,
these IMs can have the power to temporarily free the person from
the problem, but without further elaboration (without reconcep-
tualization) make it difficult for the person to evolve onto a new
narrative of the self. Thus, reconceptualization may allow the per-
son to avoid the eternal dichotomy between the two voices in op-
position, by transforming the dichotomy itself.
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Narrative Therapy and the Nature of “Innovative Moments” 19
Conclusion
In this article, we have suggested that the concept of UO—or IMs,
as we prefer—does not always produce therapeutic change. We
propose that some patterns of IMs allow the construction of new
narratives of the self, while others operate as a form of mutual
in-feeding, in which the self-narrative is trapped by the problem-
saturated story and its opposite, without further development.
From our perspective, reconceptualization IMs are viewed as
opportunities to develop new stories given the fact that the client
positions him- or herself as the author of his or her story and
is able to construct change from the meta-position. In fact, for
reconceptualization IMs to occur we need precisely this narrative
view over the way the self is being transformed, as we suggested.
This taxonomy of IMs allowed us to develop a coding sys-
tem to be used in process research in psychotherapy (Innova-
tive Moments Coding System). This line of research is close to
other research efforts by Stiles and his collaborators (Honos-
Webb & Stiles, 1998; Osatuke et al., 2004; Stiles, 1999) from
a dialogical perspective, and by Angus and colleagues (Angus
et al., 2004; Hardtke & Angus, 2004) from a narrative perspec-
tive. Our own contribution aims to explore further the way
change is constructed from the way narrative novelties emerge in
psychotherapy—that is, how change is in fact constructed from
the elaboration of UOs, as proposed by the reauthoring model of
White and Epston (1990). From this, we also want to understand
in the future how new voices emerge from the pattern of IMs that
are visible in psychotherapy, exploring more the possible connec-
tions between dialogical theories of change and narrative therapy.
We are currently developing new research projects based on
the hypotheses explored in this article. One path of research in-
volves the microgenetic analysis (see Siegler & Crowley, 1991) of
the development of each new narrative that appears in the ther-
apeutic conversation and the way IMs develop in the process of
narrating each story. The microgenetic analysis will allow a close
look at the way IMs and new voices are related. Another path of
research is the study of other forms of therapy (e.g., cognitive, ex-
periential) to analyze if the same IMs and the same patterns we
propose here apply. We hope, in the near future, to be able to
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20 M. M. Gonc¸alves et al.
contribute empirical studies that allow us to test and expand the
hypotheses explored in this article.
Notes
1. Naturally, it is not possible to know if these types of IMs are valid for all types
of problems, as there is no research demonstrating their general application.
We do not know if other problems beyond abuse are reauthored through the
elaboration of different types of IMs. This is an interesting research question
that we intend to follow in the future.
2. Strategic therapists like Watzlawick and his collaborators (e.g., Fisch, Weak-
land, & Segal, 1982; Watzlawick, Weakland, & Fish, 1974) have analyzed these
paradoxical processes with a communicational and cybernetic frame.
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