Introduction

This chapter offers readers an introduction to the value of using creative collaborative methods (specifically cowriting) in therapeutic relationships and contexts. Drawing on traditions including autoethnography, narrative therapy and interpersonal/relational psychotherapy, in this chapter we trace these established approaches in a range of disciplines, setting the scene for collaborative writing in psychotherapy as both an extension of established protocols and an innovative new strategy in contemporary therapeutic contexts. This introductory chapter also establishes the format of the book, which alternates between the two co-authors’ individual voices, and then interstitial sections which return the dialogic format of our previous publications.