How To Conduct Family Therapy Research, (Part 1.)
By Irem BRAY, Senior Tutor, 'The Family Business School'

When people ask questions about how to undertake research in Family Therapy I always say something like this:

It's no good doing research that examines topics such as: "Is Family Therapy Effective?", or "Is Family Therapy A Good Thing?" These are fine as titles of articles in newspapers and magazines but are practically impossible to examine using scientific research methods. Instead we need to look at much narrower topics. Only then we may we produce a testable hypothesis, that is possible to examine scientifically using precise refined data.

For example for my M.Sc. thesis, "Perceptions of Childhood Favoritism On Adult Sibling Relationships", I investigated two hypotheses:

1) Perceiving parental favoritism in the past would have an influence on adults' sibling relationships

2) The perception of favoritism will be correlated with a particular attachment style

The sample consisted of 25 native English speakers whose parents had stayed together at least until the subjects' 20th birthday. Subjects were identified through a screening questionnaire where they also answered questions concerning parents relative treatment of the siblings in childhood. On the basis of these answers they were allocated to one of two conditions, favoritism (n=12) or no favoritism (n=13). Subjects were then interviewed to elicit information about their current relationship with a target sibling using the Close Relationship Scale. Then they completed the Reciprocal Attachment Questionnaire; to identify their present attachment patterns.

When considering research, you need to think about the following:

Hypotheses: Have you really determined what you are investigating, who should be in your sample and why are they a good fit, and who must be left out, perhaps because they are not members of the group you are researching, or they form a special case. For example when looking at the relationship between Family Structure and Problem Behaviour, you may wish to exclude step families, or you might want to make them a separate category to compare with non-step families.

Theory: Are main concepts clearly defined? Does the research test, create or extend family systems, narrative, or counseling theories in relation to families? Does it increase our understanding of previous family therapy concepts or provide a better understanding of the literature.

Does the research provide a thorough and coherent review of existing literature? Are existing works properly acknowledged and credited for their contributions?

Method: How is the validity of the samples, measures, methods, observations, procedures and statistical analysis? Are the statistical procedures accurately and appropriately applied? Are the main assumptions well-met with no violations?

Integration: Does the study provide a useful test of the theory and hypotheses, including enough empirical reasoning as a foundation for new theory? Is the method (qualitative or quantitative) a good fit for the research question and theory?

Contribution: Is the contribution of the manuscript new and meaningful to family therapy literature in terms of theoretical and conceptual knowledge for the field? Do the citations correctly reference the original source of the information used?

At 'The Family Business School' we stress the importance of apprenticeship, supervision and practice as the main planks when learning how to be competent as a family therapist. If we allowed ourselves a fourth priority it would be assessing our own effectiveness, and the effectiveness of family therapy to ameliorate suffering under prescribed ranges of conditions.