Motivation for change in psychotherapy

Various motivational approaches in literature have been developed in an at- tempt to prevent patients from dropping out of treatment, to increase their active engagement end, hence, to improve the short-term and long-term outcome of ther- apy. In most cases motivation is intended as a cognitive quality and lack or falls in motivation (relapses) are usually seen as weakness of the will. On the contrary, in the transition from modern to post-modern psychology, the very concept of motivation does not issue from a well-formed and orderly cogni- tion at the centre of our being, but originates in a person’s vague, diffuse and unor- dered feelings — their sense of how they are ‘positioned’ in relation to the others around them. Offering a critical review of the literature on this theme we intend to discuss some suggestions about how to analyse positions using discourse analysis.