Recognising children’s involvement in child and family therapy sessions: A microanalysis of audiovisual recordings of actual practice

Abstract Children’s right to involvement in practices that address their well-being is frequently highlighted, yet how children exercise face-to-face encounters has remained fairly unknown. To fulfil our aim of identifying, describing and defining children’s involvement, we conducted an inductive microanalysis dialogue on audiovisual recordings naturally occurring therapy sessions with attending social services departments mental health clinics. The resulting operationalisation generated six dimensions involvement: participatory, directive, positional, emotional, agentive narrative. By operationalising render the abstract concept more amenable fine-grained analysis, systematic evaluation criticism. domains also offer tools recognise practice. Lastly, article discusses practical implications presents a compass for orientation. Since many conversational elements institutional talks are generic, potentially transferable other settings, including school counselling, child protection investigation clinical psychology. A high inter-analyst agreement, together similar findings utterance functions interactional dominance types dialogues, enhance dimensions’ transferability.