Overview of Outcome Research in Family Therapy: Methodological Considerations1

This paper recognizes that establishing the effectiveness of therapy is important for practitioners and researchers alike, but that to date, there has generally been a failure in family therapy research to demonstrate efficacy. This is essentially due to the complexity of variables interacting in therapy and the practical realities of implementing research in the field setting which has, in turn, produced studies of poor methodology typically leading to ambiguous results and conclusions. A more rigorous approach to experimentation together with single-case methodology (which currently is under-utilized) can assist in providing clearer demonstrations of therapeutic efficacy.