ABSTRACT
This chapter is an attempt to summarise the main issues involved in the evaluation of outcome research in family therapy. A checklist is provided against which individual studies may be assessed and to provide a basis for future research. It is argued that for a number of reasons, family therapy is in danger of going the way of all other therapies, unless steps are taken to curb blind enthusiasm and to ensure a more rigorous approach. Several key reviews indicate that we have little knowledge of the true patterns of interaction in normal or abnormal families, or that there is little evidence that family therapy and/or marital therapy actually have any beneficial effect. Indeed the burden of evidence is that they do not work. However, it is difficult to pose the question ‘Does family therapy work?’ since there is no unitary theory or common set of specified practices. Research done so far has been sloppy and ill-controlled and characterised by a common bias that the outcome will be favourable. Of the many problems which abound a few instructive examples are dealt with in detail. It is concluded that family therapy research has a long way to go before it can make a useful contribution to our body of knowledge concerning human behaviour.
