Abstract
Most contemporary researchers in the area of psychotherapy are attempting to discover how psychotherapy facilitates change in the client. While advances in our understanding of psychotherapeutic change have been made, most researchers have not explored the process of change in terms of first-order versus second-order change. The research presented here is a study of the client's experience of second-order change. Seven participants volunteered to be interviewed about their therapy experience. The information they provided was analyzed following qualitative procedures outlined by the method of phenomenology. The results comprise an exhaustive description of second-order change characterized by the transcendence of one's usual experience of self.
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Murray, R. The Phenomenon of Psychotherapeutic Change: Second-Order Change in One's Experience of Self. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy 32, 167–177 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1020592926010
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1020592926010