Ontogenesis in narrative therapy: a linguistic-semiotic examination of client change

In this article I investigate how the narrative therapy process facilitates client change. The kind of change that I focus on is linguistic-semiotic; that is, how clients develop their meaning potential through language. What I will demonstrate is how an examination of the linguistic-semiotic level provides new insights into narrative therapy's role in endowing clients with the semiotic materials to make new meanings. An examination of six conjoint sessions involving a narrative therapist with one couple revealed that client change or ontogenesis is composed of three semiotic phases. In the first phase of ontogenesis clients display a beginning semiotic repertoire by formulating "extreme case" descriptions of self and other's behaviors. In the second phase clients are scaffolded by therapist's questions and reformulations into construing events as problems and problems as the agents of negative behaviors. In the final phase clients display a development in their semiotic potential. Clients are able to eliminate problems and construe themselves as agents without prior therapist scaffolding. Therefore, in the latter stages of the narrative process clients are able to deploy meanings that have been generated throughout therapy, in order to produce narratives of self agency and self control.