The aim of this chapter is to present a systematic overview of some of the research results presented in this book. An overview like this cannot cover all that was important in the preceding chapters, but it will bring out something from each. We present the key results in Table 11.1. We then unpack the contents of the table, and, by setting them against earlier conversation analytic research on psychotherapy, set the contributions of this book in context.

In order to summarize the research findings in a meaningful way, we have had to choose one analytic dimension from which to consider them. We have chosen one that is the cornerstone of all conversation analytic research: sequence organization (see Schegloff, 2007). We have chosen, from the wealth of material in each chapter, to emphasize what we learn about the ways in which the utterances of one participant are linked to utterances of the other(s) in the interaction. The apparently simple conjunction of one person's utterance with another's is a site at which many therapy-relevant phenomena happen.

There are two distinctions that we have made in organizing the research results of the book on the basis of the conjunction of utterances. One is the distinction between initiatory and responsive actions. An initiatory action is one that calls for, or makes relevant, a response from the co-participants. Responsive action is, of course, such a response.