Conversational evidence in therapeutic dialogue

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Linguistics
• Sociology

Background:

• Family therapy often relies on traditional evidence, overlooking the nuances of client-therapist dialogue.
• Discourse analysis offers a method to empirically examine conversational patterns within therapeutic settings.
• Social constructionist approaches emphasize the co-created nature of therapeutic meaning.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose conversational evidence as a valuable addition to psychotherapy's evidence base.
• To explore the compatibility of qualitative evaluation methods with social constructionist family therapy.
• To examine how conversation analysis can evaluate accomplishments within therapeutic dialogue.

Main Methods:

• Review of evaluative practices in psychotherapy.
• Analysis of qualitative evaluation methods for social constructionist family therapy.
• Application of conversation analysis to therapeutic dialogue.

Main Results:

• Conversational evidence, derived from discourse analysis, can empirically enrich psychotherapy's evidence base.
• Certain qualitative methods align well with social constructionist family therapy principles.
• Conversation analysis provides a framework for evaluating 'accomplishments' in therapeutic conversations.

Conclusions:

• Integrating conversational evidence can broaden the scope of psychotherapy research.
• This approach offers new avenues for training and pedagogical development in family therapy.
• Empirical analysis of dialogue enhances understanding of therapeutic processes.