Rising to the Challenges of Identifying and Analyzing Clients’ Narratives

Psychotherapy researchers and clinicians alike are faced with two primary challenges in the service of most effectively understanding the therapeutic process: first, they must identify the most generative elements from the rich flow of therapeutic dialogue; and second, they must select the most appropriate and productive tools for analyzing them. Singer and Bonalume (2010) have developed the Coding System for Autobiographical Memory Narratives in Psychotherapy (CS-AMNP), a trans-theoretical method for rising to these two challenges. In this commentary, the CS-AMNP is evaluated: its noteworthy contributions are highlighted, its potential limitations are discussed, and fruitful expansions are proposed in terms of extending it from autobiographical narratives in therapy to autobiographical narratives about therapy.