BECOMING: an analysis of narratives describing the experiences of nurses who have undertaken training in solution focused brief therapy.

Smith, Stephen W.

Abstract

This thesis is a study of the experiences of nurses who have undertaken training in Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT). While the clinical outcomes of using SFBT, and other psychological therapies, to treat clients have been the subject of much research, the outcomes of training therapists to use SFBT has been relatively unexplored. It is, therefore, my intention to address, in part, this uncharted area of practice. Utilising a mixed methodology, the study is divided into two Stages. In Stage I, an original Solution Focused (SF) methodology is developed and used to conduct individual interviews with twenty participants. Interviews are transcribed and treated as narrative texts, and are then subjected to multi-factored analysis enabling the synthesis of a group narrative and the construction of a typology of experience. In Stage II, I conduct further in-depth interviews with three of the original participants and utilise a hermeneutic methodology, drawing on the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer, to engage with the texts generated from these interviews. The texts are explored thematically, and through the nursing metaparadigm of Jacqueline Fawcett, and are compared with a metaparadigm of SF practice. The research suggests that training is SFBT can have a profound effect on the clinical practice, and professional identity, of nurses, and that this is related to the paradigm of nursing which informs their practice. Where the nursing paradigm is of the dominant assessment and delivery of care needs modality, SFBT training has little to offer the nurse; however, where the nursing paradigm reflects an interpersonal, dynamic modality based on shared relationships, training in SFBT can be a transformative experience for the nurse. This research makes an original contribution to the field of SFBT and to our understanding of the relationship between SFBT and nursing. Building on the work of earlier scholars, it argues that SFBT is congruent with some nursing paradigms, and not all nursing paradigms as previously suggested. It also advances our understanding of how the scope and field of SF practice may be delineated.

Citation

SMITH, S.W. 2015. BECOMING: an analysis of narratives describing the experiences of nurses who have undertaken training in solution focused brief therapy. Robert Gordon University, PhD thesis.

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Jun 29, 2015
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 29, 2015
• Keywords: Solution focused brief therapy; Nurses; Training; Personal experience; Methodology; Narratives; Hermeneutic phenomenology; Metaparadigm of nursing; Solution focused metaparadigm; Ontology
• Public URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10059/1220
• Award Date: May 31, 2015