ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the types of outcomes that dialogical network meetings produce compared to established helping systems. Information on the samples as well as the concrete research design is given elsewhere. The effectiveness of Open Dialogues was explored in the context of the Finnish national multi-centre Integrated Treatment of Acute Psychosis project. The differences may be seen as an illustration of how the network-oriented treatment with immediate crisis response may enhance the treatment of first-episode psychotic patients. New practices always emerge in some specific contexts, not as a replication of some generalized knowledge. The psychiatric system in which the Open Dialogues approach was generated has functioned since the 1980s in Tornio in Finland. The main problem of Open Dialogues seemed to be organizing treatment in cases where the family had few possibilities for developing a linguistic description of their life.
