Doing It Collaboratively! Addressing the Dilemmas of Designing Quantitative Effect Studies on Narrative Family Therapy in a Local Clinical Context

This article suggests an approach for addressing the dilemmas narrative therapists face, wanting to make narrative therapy accessible to people seeking help in contexts favoring evidence-based therapy. The approach is inspired by participatory action research and involves clinicians and clients in a local clinical context. The article offers a detailed case description of implementing psychometric effect measurements on narrative family therapy and of creating a shared collaborative stance for researchers using quantitative effect measurements and clinicians using narrative therapy. Our findings suggest that involving narrative clinicians and clients in the development of a research design in the local clinical context might be helpful in overcoming narrative skepticism and criticism towards quantitative effect research. It is our hope that this article will inspire more narrative therapists to participate in the creation of a quantitative evidence base for narrative therapy.