Change in therapy: clients' perspectives
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The change process: clients' perspectives and understanding of change during psychological therapy
IRAS ID
243364
Contact name
Amanda Mount
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of East London
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 7 months, 19 days
Research summary
The primary goal of psychological interventions is to achieve psychological change (Keeney, 2002), yet our understanding of how this change occurs is limited (Klein & Elliott, 2006). There is a lack of qualitative research within this area (Binder, Holgersen, & Neilsen, 2010), particularly in respect to the views of service users, the individuals who experience this change. Clients’ perspectives have been surprisingly overlooked (Gordon, 2000) and it is unclear whether change is a meaningful concept to them. This is concerning as figures indicate that widely used and recommended models such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) despite demonstrating some effectiveness, also show that a significant number of clients do not experience any change following therapy and relapse is common (Wiles et al., 2013).
The proposed research will explore clients’ perspectives and understanding of psychological change. The research will interview individuals who following a course of CBT consider themselves to have experienced change. Qualitative methodology will be employed in the form of one-to-one interviews, and interviews will be analysed using thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). This research is in line with the service user involvement movement and aims to lead towards more meaningful evaluation of change for clients. In addition, the research aims to provide insight into change processes to improve the efficacy of psychological models and interventions (Carey et al., 2007).
REC name
West Midlands - Coventry & Warwickshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/WM/0088
Date of REC Opinion
12 Mar 2019
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion