A new qualitative method for the analysis of narrative change in group intervention: the innovative moments coding system for group

Over the years, numerous qualitative coding systems have been developed to analyze change in individual psychotherapy, while there are only a few methods to study the process of change in group interventions. The Innovative Moment Coding System (IMCS; Gonçalves et al., 2011) is a reliable and valid method originally developed to track markers of change in individual psychotherapy, i.e. innovative moments (IMs). Based on previous research (Esposito et al., 2017; Garcia-Martìnez et al., 2020), this methodological study proposes an adaptation of the IMCS, the Innovative Moments Coding System for Group (IMCS-G), to track IMs in group setting. In a first study aimed to develop the IMCS-G, the transcripts of twenty-seven sessions of three counseling groups addressed to underachieving university students were analyzed by two reliable coders of the IMCS and seven categories of IMs were detected: three categories belonging to the Individual IMs (e.g. change was expressed by a single participant) and four categories to the group IMs (e.g. change was coconstructed by more than one participant). In a second study, the IMCS-G was used to code thirty-six sessions of further four counselling groups with different outcomes. In both studies, a strong agreement between coders and a high reliability for IMs levels were detected; furthermore, good outcome groups presented a significant higher frequency of group IMs that increased along the sessions. This study showed that IMCS-G is a reliable method that may respond to the need of developing qualitative methods to analyze process of change also in group interventions.