Therapy Talk (PDF)

Pamela Fitzgerald works as a person-centred, cognitive-behavioural and solution-focused Psychotherapist and Counselling Psychologist in Dublin, Ireland, and Frankfurt, Germany. She is a private practitioner but also works as a trainer in the field of workplace health promotion, and is part of an affiliate network for Employee Assistant Programmes in the UK, Ireland and Germany. She completed her PhD at the University of Manchester, UK, under Professor Emeritus Ivan Leudar.

"Sometimes we know what we did but not how we did it. This 'how' of action is usually not noted or just fleetingly so. Such inclination applies in psychotherapy - psychotherapists know what they are doing but not always how they do it. Conversation Analysis is a tool developed by sociologists, psychologists and linguists to describe with rigour basic recurring structures of talk. It has been used to describe what psychotherapists actually do in general and to compare therapeutic practices informed by diverse theories. The best discursive studies of psychotherapy result from cooperation between conversation analysts and psychotherapists. Dr Fitzgerald is both an experienced counselling psychologist/psychotherapist and a conversation analyst. Therapy Talk examines her own practice (person-centred, CBT and solution focused psychotherapy) using conversation analysis. In doing so she makes tangible what she and her clients do in psychotherapy and this allows her to view her practice with a critical eye and to develop. The book is an excellent contribution to the studies of psychotherapy and will be invaluable to any psychotherapist wanting to reflect more sharply on their practice and to develop it. Intriguingly, it will also make a very interesting reading to anyone interested in what can be done with language." - Ivan Leudar, University of Manchester, UK