Technolatry, Methodolatry, and the Results of Family Therapy

Abstract

Wells and Dezen's revisited results of research on the outcomes of nonbehavioral family therapy are themselves revisited. While their conclusions are largely defensible in terms of conventional criteria for research design and for assessing change in psychotherapy, we question whether such standard criteria are sufficient for studying the outcomes of family therapy. Moreover, Wells and Dezen's preoccupation with therapeutic technology at the expense of relationship factors and of "objective" change measures at the expense of more inferential measures severely limits the clinical and conceptual meaningfulness of their review.

Multiple impact therapy : evaluation and design for future study

“…Controlled administration of MIT, along with uniform data collection, are important methodological prerequisites (Gurman & Kniskern, 1978). Ideally, all families should be routinely pretested within one day following their request for services.…”

Methodological problems in the evaluation of family therapy

“…The point is that there are both good and bad objective measures and that in many cases a subjective measure may be preferable to a particular objective one. Gurman and Kniskern (1978) make the similar point in stating that objective indices are 'not inherently better than indices based on patients' and therapists' subjective assessments' (p. 280) and they give one very good reason why subjective measures should be included: '. .…”

“…Gurman and Kniskern (1978) claim that this reflects the over-emphasis on technique (which they call 'technolatry') and they point out that much of the variance of outcome is assignable to personnel rather than technique. It would be equally valid to ask the question 'Is this family therapist effective?'…”

“…The adequacy of even these two studies may be doubted (Gale, 1979) and several authors have produced long lists of criteria which any adequate outcome study should have (Gurman and Kniskern (1978) cite fourteen criteria and Gale (1979) provides a long check-list against which individual studies are to be assessed). Lask (1979) gives a useful, and much more modest, list of 'minimal criteria' for a methodologically adequate study and this can be used to illustrate the important conclusion that no feasible study can possibly meet the stringent criteria which some critics impose.…”

“…', the broader question 'What does the therapy do?' While it is true that authors in the field of family therapy outcome have recently pointed to the value of multi-dimensional assessment of change (Gurman and Kniskern, 1978; Wells and Dezen, 1 9 7 8~) b) this is sometimes recommended as if the resulting assessments are then to be introduced into a formula from which a single 'effectiveness index' might be computed. Such a procedure is not without value but is fundamentally different from the use of multiple indicators in constructing a multidimensional profile of change.…”