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Joint Construction of Narratives in the Psychoanalytic Setting
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26 March 2026

Self-narratives of the client serve as a starting point in verbally oriented psychotherapies. Therapeutic work involves the reconstruction of the clients’ self-narratives, with both client and therapist taking an active role: the therapist helping to elaborate and transform various aspects of the client’s story by asking questions and offering interpretations etc. The therapist’s involvement in constructing the client’s self-narratives results in what is considered a joint construction of narratives. This book shows how such narrative interaction contributes to psychotherapy process by analyzing perspective shifts of speakers during the joint construction of narratives, using a novel discourse-based model of narrative perspective. Gathering empirical data from psychoanalytic psychotherapy over a number of years, the book also examines the analyst’s role in transforming narratives by facilitating the client’s perspective shifts.
Joint Construction of Narratives in the Psychoanalytic Setting will be of benefit to scholars of narrative discourse, clinical practitioners, and to students of both narrative and psychotherapy.
MEDICAL / Psychiatry / General, Psychotherapy, PSYCHOLOGY / Psychotherapy / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / General, HEALTH & FITNESS / Diseases & Conditions / General, Literary studies: general, Coping with / advice about mental health issues or topics, Psychiatry
Eszter Berán was born in Budapest, Hungary. She completed her Master’s degree at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, USA, and her PhD in psychology at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, 2010. She is currently an associate professor at the Institute of Psychology at Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest.
Zsolt Unoka M.D., Ph.D., psychiatrist and psychotherapist, psychoanalyst, member of the Hungarian Psychoanalytical Society. Deputy director of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy and the head of the Psychotherapy ward at Semmelweis University Budapest. Published papers in the area of psychoanalytic process research, and social cognition in borderline personality disorder.
Introduction Eszter Berán
Part 1 Theoretical background of the joint construction of narratives
1. Narrative interaction and its development Eszter Berán
2. Psychotherapeutic discourse Eszter Berán
3. A discourse-based model of narrative perspective Eszter Berán
Part 2 Methodology
4. The Budapest Psychotherapy Database Eszter Berán
Part 3 Empirical study of the joint construction of narratives in psychoanalysis
5. Autobiographical memory and narrative perspective Zsolt Unoka
6. Introducing a pseudo-narrator Eszter Berán
7. Long-term changes in interpersonal relating Eszter Berán and Zsolt Unoka
8. Long-term changes in expressing agency Eszter Berán and Zsolt Unoka
9. Working in the here and now of the therapeutic session Eszter Berán and Zsolt Unoka
Conclusion Zsolt Unoka and Eszter Berán
References and Bibliography
Index