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Child‐Oriented Family Therapy Outcome Research: Comparisons Between Brief Family Therapy and an Alternative Treatment
Author(s) -
Kirkby Robert J.,
Smyrnios Kosmas X.
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
australian and new zealand journal of family therapy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.297
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1467-8438
pISSN - 0814-723X
DOI - 10.1002/j.1467-8438.1990.tb00797.x
Subject(s) - family therapy , outcome (game theory) , confounding , equivalence (formal languages) , psychotherapist , psychology , research design , medicine , clinical psychology , sociology , social science , linguistics , philosophy , mathematics , mathematical economics , pathology
This paper is concerned with outcome research in child‐oriented family therapy. Nine investigations comparing brief family therapy with an alternative treatment were critically reviewed. All of the studies were vulnerable to criticisms on design and methodological grounds. Problem areas included: specification of therapeutic techniques, confounding of therapeutic variables, equivalence of therapist factors, measurement of outcome, adequacy of measures and appropriate use of control groups. All studies concluded that childhood problems could be treated successfully with brief family therapy techniques. However, in the light of the design problems listed above, these conclusions should be treated tentatively.