Realizing Relational Preferences Through Transforming Interpersonal Patterns

Family therapy has often been conceptualized as a conversational process whereby therapists and clients generate new meanings. Based on a 3‐year study of conversational practices observable in successful family therapy processes of Chilean families with a child/adolescent who is engaged in disruptive behaviors, we looked for clinical examples of Transforming Interpersonal Patterns (TIPs). TIPs are a key aspect of the IPscope, a framework we used to explore the meaning‐making processes in family therapy. TIPs constitute a novel approach to explore therapeutic processes by identifying empirically traceable conversational practices involved in generating “new meanings.” TIPs are involved in bringing forth and discursively articulating (“talking‐into‐being”) clients’ preferred ways of relating and living (i.e., relational preferences or RPs). We analyze conversational data from successful family therapy sessions/treatments, and present an emergent model of five categories of conversational practices making up TIPs, namely: Preparatory TIPs, Identifier TIPs, Tracker TIPs, Transformer TIPs, and Consolidator TIPs. We have called them “realizers” because these conversational practices help families talk‐into‐being (or “make real”) particular relational preferences. We also offer user‐friendly descriptors of realizers’ subcategories (e.g., Measuring TIPs) which may help practitioners to recognize, learn, and perform these conversational invitations. Theoretical consequences and future lines of research are discussed. Resumen La terapia familiar generalmente se ha conceptualizado como un proceso conversacional por medio del cual los terapeutas y los pacientes generan nuevos significados. Basándose en un estudio de tres años de prácticas conversacionales observables en procesos satisfactorios de terapia familiar de familias chilenas con un niño/adolescente que tiene comportamientos disruptivos, buscamos ejemplos clínicos de patrones interpersonales transformadores (PIT). Estos patrones son un aspecto clave del “IPscope” o instrumento de evaluación de los patrones interpersonales (Tomm, St. George, Wulff, & Strong, 2014), un marco que usamos para analizar los procesos de creación de significado en la terapia familiar. Los patrones interpersonales transformadores constituyen un enfoque innovador para analizar los procesos terapéuticos mediante el reconocimiento de prácticas conversacionales fáciles de seguir empíricamente que participan en la generación de “significado