Conference Agenda

This qualitative study explores how self-reflexivity evolves over time in clients engaged in long-term group psychotherapy, drawing on Dialogical Self Theory (DST) as its primary theoretical framework. The study is situated within the enriched systemic psychotherapy model SANE – System Attachment Narrative Encephalon®, which integrates systemic, attachment-based, narrative, and neuroscientific perspectives.

Eight Greek clients (four women and four men), aged 36–50, who had participated in weekly group psychotherapy for three to five years, took part in the study. All participants initially sought therapy due to severe psychological distress. To access reflexive processes, a modified Interpersonal Process Recall (IPR) methodology was employed. Participants were invited to watch video-recorded sessions from the early phase of their therapy and subsequently engaged in semi-structured interviews focusing on retrospective reflections about themselves, the therapeutic process, and perceived change.

Thematic narrative analysis revealed six interrelated themes reflecting perceived therapeutic progress: ongoing motivation, self-growth, self-mastery, self-compassion, self-parenting, and self-observation. Participants’ reflections demonstrated an increasing capacity to reinterpret past experiences, articulate new meanings, and recognize internal change over time.

Findings suggest that self-reflexivity develops not only as an individual cognitive capacity but also as a relational and co-constructed process emerging within therapeutic dialogue. The gradual internalization of a compassionate therapeutic stance appeared to foster greater self-compassion, agency, and self-regulation. The study contributes to psychotherapy process research by highlighting the role of long-term therapy in supporting enduring reflexive and narrative change.

This qualitative study explores therapeutic identity as a dialogical, evolving process in trainees of systemic psychotherapy, grounded in Dialogical Self Theory (DST). Focusing on themes of becoming, uncertainty, and positioning, the study examines how trainees re-construct the self across contexts of family history, training, therapeutic role, supervision, and personal therapy.

The study draws on written reflective responses from 20 psychotherapy trainees, who completed 15 reflection-focused questions addressing recurring inner voices, roles, and shifts in I-positions. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis, with attention to dialogical movements within the self.

Five thematic domains were identified: (1) the emergence of an observing I-position through training, (2) the reactivation and transformation of family roles in the therapeutic role, (3) the development of self-worth through acceptance rather than perfection, (4) destabilization as a developmental process, and (5) internal dialogue as a mechanism of self-regulation. Trainees describe learning to remain present in the therapeutic role while tolerating doubt, vulnerability, and inner conflict.

Findings suggest that professional maturation is not achieved through certainty, but through the capacity to sustain internal dialogue among multiple voices. Therapeutic identity emerges as a work in progress, shaped through dialogical processes that allow polyphony, movement, and relational responsibility.

The transition to motherhood represents a profound dialogical reorganization of the self, marked by the emergence of new I-positions and the reactivation of early attachment-related voices. Drawing on Dialogical Self Theory (DST), this qualitative study explores how women during pregnancy and early motherhood (0–1 year) negotiate internal multiplicity, contradictions, and future-oriented maternal identities.

The study adopts a dialogical and attachment-informed methodological design. Semi-structured interviews were developed, inspired by the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) and the Interview of Maternal Representations during Pregnancy (IRMAG-R), in order to explore positioning processes, internal dialogues, and narrative tensions. Interviews focus on women’s childhood attachment experiences, emerging maternal self-positions, and imagined future selves as mothers. Data are analyzed using Narrative Thematic Analysis, with attention to dialogical movements across time.

Rather than treating motherhood as a stable identity shift, the study conceptualizes it as a dialogical space in which past, present, and future selves enter into conversation. By examining how attachment-related voices and maternal representations are woven into emerging maternal identities, the study aims to contribute to dialogical understandings of motherhood and to deepen insight into women’s subjective experience during the perinatal period.

This presentation explores dialogical self-transformations as expressed by a client completing long-term group psychotherapy, focusing on the language used to describe the self and other group members during the conscious process of therapeutic ending. Grounded in Dialogical Self Theory (DST), the study examines how internal positioning, emotional expression, and relational stance shift at the moment of farewell.

The material is drawn from the client’s final narratives within the group context and is analyzed with attention to changes in dominant I-positions and emotional voices. Findings highlight a transition from a previously dominant critical I-position, characterized by anger and guilt toward self and others, to a more integrative and compassionate dialogical organization. At termination, the client demonstrates increased self-awareness, acceptance of vulnerable and difficult parts of the self, and recognition of personal change achieved through therapy. This shift is accompanied by an expanded emotional repertoire, including tenderness, gratitude, and compassion, as well as greater understanding and acceptance of others’ limitations.

The completion of long-term group therapy emerges as a dialogical milestone, where new self-positions are consolidated and internal dialogue becomes more flexible and compassionate. The presentation contributes to dialogical understandings of therapeutic endings by illustrating how self-reflexive language reveals enduring changes in internal dialogue, emotional regulation, and the capacity to relate to others with understanding and acceptance.