Anssi Peräkylä, Charles Antaki, Sanna Vehviläinen & Ivan Leudar (ed.) (2008). Conversation Analysis and Psychotherapy. Cambridge University Press.

Psychotherapy is a ”talking cure” – clients voice to their troubles to therapists, who listen, prompt, question, interpret, and generally try to engage in a positive and rehabilitating conversation with their clients. Using the sophisticated theoretical and methodological apparatus of Conversation Analysis – a radical approach to how language in interaction works – the book sheds light on the subtle and minutely organized sequences of speech in psychotherapeutic sessions. It examines how therapists deliver questions, cope with resistance, and reinterpret experiences, and how they can use conversation to achieve success.

Conversation is a key component of people`s everyday and professional lives and the book provides an unusually detailed insight into the complexity and power of talk in institutional settings.

Featuring contribution from a collection of internationally renowned authors, the book will appeal to researchers and graduate students studying conversation analysis across the disciplines of psychology, sociology, and linguistics.