Colaboração terapêutica: Estudo comparativo dois casos de insucesso terapêutico – um caso finalizado e de um caso de desistência

The quality of the therapeutic interaction is an important predictor of the therapy gains and critical in the clients’ decisions to complete the therapy. The aim of this study was to describe and compare the development of the therapeutic collaboration in two clinical cases, a completer and a dropout, both unsuccessful and followed in Narrative Therapy. The Therapeutic Collaboration Coding System was used, allowing the identification of collaborative, non-collaborative and ambivalent episodes by reference to the clients’ Therapeutic Zone of Proximal Development (TZPD). The codification was independently made by two pairs of judges, and the differences were resolved through consensus and posterior auditing process. The results show that in the dropout case the non-collaborative episodes were five times higher than in the completer. There was an increasing tendency from the part of the therapist to stimulate the clients’ movement through their TZPD towards innovation in both cases. However, if in the last sessions of the completer the client was able to collaborate with the therapist; in the dropout case occurred an increase of non-collaborative episodes between the dyad.