An Examination of Analytically Oriented Psychotherapy Process with a Discourse Analysis

The setting of psychotherapy is constructed through language. Few studies are focusing on the role of language within a real psychotherapy process. The aim of the study is to investigate how the client has positioned himself/herself and the people in his/her life during the analytically oriented psychotherapy process. Four psychotherapy sessions were examined to attain that aim. Those sessions were analyzed through a research method titled as discourse analysis. Specifically, the determination of subject positions is the main focus of this study. The analysis of the study has shown that there are four subject positions used by the client. These are 1) Self as the Subject and Object of Inculcation, 2) Subject Positions as the Evaluator and the Evaluated, 3) Subject Positions as the Director and the Directed, 4) The Therapist seen by the Client as Knowing and Judging at the Same Time. The findings of the study have been discussed in the results section within the scope of the existing literature. Accordingly, it is revealed that the subject positions might yield information about the client’s social relationships. It is indicated that these subject positions can be questioned and transformed through the examination of these positions in the psychotherapy setting. Furthermore, questioning which subject positions have been used in the psychotherapy process and which kinds of transformations these positions have gone through yield a wealth of information about the psychotherapy process. It is thought that a reconsideration of the subject positions in psychotherapy by additional studies would further contribute to the field