ABSTRACT
Use of qualitative assessments in couples and family therapy provides many of the same advantages that qualitative research provides in human science inquiry. Qualitative strategies are flexible and nonreductionist, focused on meaning and on understanding and interpretation of experience and relationships. The complexity and multiple perspectives present in couples and family therapy provide rich opportunities for the clinician interested in qualitative assessment to represent family members’ thoughts; actions; interactions; conversations; realities; motivations; beliefs; and lives in terms of words; figures; pictures; diagrams; matrices; drawings; observations; and stories. Qualitative assessment strategies span the continuum from noninterventive, observational strategies to interventive, prescribed activities and tasks. Additionally, the clinician as expert diagnostician can make qualitative assessments or, more commonly, can include the couple or family in a collaborative process of assessment (Franklin & Jordan, 1995; Gilbert & Franklin, 2003; Jordan & Franklin, 2003).
