Technolatry, Methodolatry, and the Results of Family Therapy

Wells and Dezen's revisited results of research on the outcomes of nonbehavioral family therapy are themselves revisited and it is questioned whether standard criteria for research design and for assessing change in psychotherapy are sufficient for studying the outcome 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.