Narrative innovation in life design counseling: The case of Ryan

•The innovative moments (IMs) system was used to analyze change in life design counseling.•Client's engagement in IMs increased throughout the counseling process.•Action, reflection and protest are the main forms of narrative elaboration.•The ambivalence throughout the sessions was substantially low.•Life design counseling promotes client's change.

The main aim of this research is to study the patterns of narrative change in a case of life design counseling (LDC). The innovative moments coding system (IMCS) was used to conduct an intensive analysis of the career counseling sessions. This coding system is grounded in a narrative conception of the self, and suggests that narrative change results from the elaboration and development of narrative exceptions to a client's core problematic self-narrative. The results supports the adequacy of the IMCS to the study of change in career counseling and reveal that the intervention promotes a pattern of change characterized by three types of innovative moments: action, reflection, and protest. The results are discussed taking into account their implications for career counseling theory, research and practice.