ABSTRACT
The subject of research into psychotherapy is increasingly urgently considered as ways are sought to establish effective professional practice in a world of shrinking resources and expanding demand. This chapter examines some research into how change happens, and what might constitute the "raw data" of the study of effective change. This will involve looking at notions of objectivity, subjectivity, and intersubjectivity in the research process. Intersubjectivity, then, the mutual resonance and regulation of physical/emotional states, is discovered to be the neurobiological mechanism by which the brain and mind develop. Observational methodology offers a way of enhancing the objective use of subjectivity. The observational method is useful in researching psychotherapy in that it bridges the concepts of objectivity and subjectivity, offering therapist-observed, necessarily subjective, interactions between child and therapist for consideration. An observational approach allows the important resource of the therapist's emotional responses to be used as information about the therapeutic encounter.
