The Practice of Marriage and Family Therapy, Essay Example

Family Therapy Benefits From Research

The practice of marriage and family therapy benefits from research. One of the major reasons that this is the case is due to evidence based practice. Since the field of psychology has been built upon the foundation of observations and case studies, it is beneficial to implement our understanding of experimental research in the field in order to further professional practice. Researchers are able to apply different therapy techniques to a variety of situations based on this principle. A second way that the field benefits from research is that researchers are able to contribute more knowledge to the field, which can lead to a greater understanding of a particular method or application in the future. Since experiments build upon one another, researchers are slowly building to a new technique that may become useful in the future. Lastly, research helps counselors validate their results and beliefs. For example, if a counselor prefers to use a therapy method for a certain type of patient, but isn’t sure that it is the most effective way to do so, he or she can search the literature to confirm that this practice is appropriate.

Two characteristics of family systems that create unique challenges for the researcher designing a study include family dynamics and unspoken modes of communication. It is difficult to tell whether the interactions between family members are positive or negative on the basis of their conversations and facial expressions alone. This could be because certain members of the family don’t want to reveal specific information and another member of the group catches on to this. Unspoken mode of communication are also challenging to a researcher because since he or she is not completely familiar with the family, this communication will not be detected. Family members can use this without recognizing that they are doing so, and interviewing family members in the same room has the potential for confounding results.

Research Design

When marriage and family therapists design and implement research studies, it is essential to ensure that their results are unbiased and that they are selecting a sample that is reflective of their target population. Research studies can become biased in many ways and it is the researcher’s responsibility to ensure that the design of their study avoids bias to the greatest extent. One way that group couple or family group therapy study could become biased is if the researcher tends to ask questions more frequently to one partner according to their gender or to individuals with the same family role. Doing so will gain information that is only relevant to the particular role that is being addressed and will therefore be biased towards this opinion. To avoid this conflict, it is essential for researchers to ask the same amount and type of questions to each family member and to each partner in order to ensure that they are able to understand the situation of the relationship or family unit as a whole.

A second potential breach of ethics occurs when a researcher is unable to recruit participants that are reflective of their target population. Ultimately, a researcher is somewhat limited to the population sample that he or she is able to recruit. However, the researcher is held responsible for determining how to access enough of the correct people to be able to answer the question that is being examined. To do so, he or she will have to gain an understanding of the target population prior to the start of the project. Failure to do so will generate results that are not compatible with the research design, meaning that valuable resources will have been wasted, potentially preventing other projects from being completed. Therefore, it is the researcher’s ethical responsibility to determine how to reach the target population effectively.