1 - Re-Searching Psychotherapy as a Social Practice

Summary

In this chapter I ground the need for my approach and study of the social practice of clients in relation to representatives of characteristic positions in the existing research on psychotherapy.

The Received View in Research on Psychotherapy

The following framework about the practice of therapy dominates research on psychotherapy: In therapy sessions a professional expert acts on a client with a particular diagnosis (or problem) by means of a particular technique and thereby causes a particular outcome in his client. Many studies include other subordinate factors too. One such factor is about the client and the relationship between therapist and client (Hougaard 2004). But it is seen as the obligation of the therapist, and as a crucial part of his technique and expertise, to account for, call forth, and control those other factors. Studies of them should ultimately add to the prevailing understanding of a publicly accountable practice of therapy as caused by what the therapist does in sessions. Some basic canons of this framework are crucial for grounding my critical arguments in this book.

Technical Rationality

The therapist's expertise consists in a general knowledge from which a set of techniques are derived as professional know-how. The therapist is to effect his client's treatment by applying this knowledge and set of techniques on her. So the concrete conduct of therapy is ultimately derived from a general knowledge.