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Review
. 2019 Mar 22:10:460.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00460. eCollection 2019.

Psychotherapy: A World of Meanings

Cosima Locher  1 , Sibylle Meier  1 , Jens Gaab  1
Affiliations
Review

Psychotherapy: A World of Meanings

Cosima Locher et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

Despite a wealth of findings that psychotherapy is an effective psychological intervention, the principal mechanisms of psychotherapy change are still in debate. It has been suggested that all forms of psychotherapy provide a context which enables clients to transform the meaning of their experiences and symptoms in such a way as to help clients feel better, and function more adaptively. However, psychotherapy is not the only health care intervention that has been associated with "meaning": the reason why placebo has effects has also been proposed to be a "meaning response." Thus, it has been argued that the meaning of treatments has a central impact on beneficial (and by extension, negative) health-related responses. In light of the strong empirical support of a contextual understanding of psychotherapy and its effects, the aim of this conceptual analysis is to examine the role of meaning and its transformation in psychotherapy-in general-and within three different, commonly used psychotherapy modalities.

Keywords: meaning; narrative; placebo; plausibility; psychotherapy.

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