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PhD project title: A qualitative inquiry into the use of expressive writing tasks for therapeutic change through the lens of pluralistic therapy. Research question: How do therapists make decisions about expressive therapeutic writing tasks?
Nicola McNally-Key, PhD candidate in Counselling Email: n.mcnally-key1300@abertay.ac.uk
Research aim and terms
Qualitative Methodology
Participants
Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA)
Participants from a purposive sample of practitioners with experience in expressive therapeutic writing will be interviewed for the IPA study. Ethical approval has been granted by the university for this research.
Research aim
To explore the process of therapists’ decision-making for expressive writing (EW) tasks. • How do therapists design EW tasks? • How and when is client choice incorporated? • How effective is EW in terms of therapeutic change? Literature and studies
Therapy Personalisation shapes the therapy as closely as possible to the client’s individual wants and needs. (Hall et al., 2021; Millard et al., 2021; Norcross & Cooper, 2021)
Pluralistic Counselling
is a new framework for counselling theory, practice and research (Cooper and McLeod, 2011; Cooper and Dryden, 2017; Smith and De la Prida, 2021)
Pennebaker’s Paradigm
Expressive writing is a form of writing therapy developed primarily by James W. Pennebaker in the late 1980s. (Pennebaker and Beall, 1986; Pennebaker and Chung, 2011)
Expressive therapeutic writing tasks
refers to writing that is used to delve deeper into thoughts, opinions, and emotions rooted in experiences, memories, and trauma. (Hunt and Sampson,1998; Kerner and Fitzpatrick, 2007; McNicol, 2016)
Further information:
n.mcnally-key1300 @abertay.ac.uk
Abertay University is an operating name of the University of Abertay Dundee, a charity registered in Scotland, No: SC016040.