RESEARCH PAPER GUIDELINES ENGLISH G110 Length 2000 word.docx

RESEARCH PAPER GUIDELINES | ENGLISH G110
Length: 2000 words (not counting Works Cited page).
Due: December 16, 2022
For your final paper you will write a research paper on Chinua
Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Your
argument will be part of a feminist, psychoanalytic, or
postcolonial critical discussion of the text.
You are required to use six secondary sources, four of which are
on the novel itself.
The basic process involved in writing a research paper in
literature is no different than other kinds
of research papers. Begin with an area of interest, ask questions
sparked by that interest, and
formulate a working hypothesis as a response to one or more of
those questions.
TOPIC & THESIS
The better you know the text, the easier it will be to find a
topic. I highly advise rereading the text
and writing down ideas as you read. Pay attention to recurring
themes; ask questions that prompt
and guide further inquiry. To begin your inquiry, use the
questions in our critical theory text. One or
more of those questions might lead you to a specific hypothesis
of your own, or you might find that
the text allows for an entirely different psychoanalytic or
postcolonial reading.

When you have a hypothesis (one that you’ll refine into a strong
thesis), start gathering sources.
Begin with searches specific to your topic, and broaden them
until you have a sufficient number of
secondary sources to review.
The goal of the research is, first, for you to see how your
hypothesis fits into the critical discussion
of your topic. You’ll find that much has been said about the
topic, in which case you will need to ask
yourself how you can add to the discussion. You might agree
with critics, but come to your
conclusion through different analyses, or you might disagree
and make that disagreement your
thesis. It’s also possible that there is very little (or no) critical
discussion of your specific topic. In
that case, you are exploring new territory and offering new
ways of understanding the text.
The second goal of the research is for you to introduce the
critical discussion as context for your
now refined thesis and to continue that discussion throughout
your essay, quoting and paraphrasing
criticism wherever it relates to your main ideas.
SOURCES
Primary sources are the literary works themselves, such as
Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Secondary sources
are works that analyze and interpret primary sources or provide
relevant information. For this paper,
you are required to use six secondary sources. Four of your
sources must discuss the novel itself.
Your other sources might be used for relevant contextual
information, relevant concepts, etc. All of
your sources must be scholarly (scholarly books or scholarly

articles).
As a student, you have access to a variety of databases through
the library website. Use these
databases to search for scholarly articles.
Scholarly articles are written by scholars and experts in a
particular field. In addition to using the
database search features to find scholarly articles, you can look
for certain key features to identify a
scholarly article. For example, the title of a scholarly article is
usually straightforward and reflects the
content of the article. The author’s name and affiliation (a
university, for example) is present.
Scholarly articles are longer than popular magazine articles, and
they contain no images. They always
include research and provide references.
Newspaper articles, magazine articles, and encyclopedia articles
are not scholarly articles. Also note
that a web source is different from a scholarly article you access
online. Web sources are articles or
other pieces that are published on the web (a Wikipedia article,
for example). These are different
from articles written by scholars that happen to be available
electronically.
Doing the research is a major part of this assignment, so I
suggest you begin right away so that you
have enough time to evaluate, select, and synthesize sources.
Some of the sources you look at will,
upon closer evaluation, turn out not to be useful to you.
Follow MLA formatting and documentation guidelines for the

format of your essay and the
documentation of your sources in the text and in the Works
Cited page. Papers that don’t follow
MLA guidelines accurately will lose points.
Review Ch. 10 (“Writing a Research Essay on Fiction”) in
Literature for a detailed guide on finding
sources, creating a working bibliography, and integrating and
documenting sources.
SCHEDULE
Tutor Review Due: December 15, 2022
Final Draft Due: December 16, 2022
70
Families in society: the Journal of contemporary social services
©2013 alliance for children and Families
issn: Print 1044-3894; electronic 1945-1350
2013, 94(2), 70–78
Doi: 10.1606/1044-3894.4282
Evidence-guided practice: Integrating the Science and
Art of Social work
alex Gitterman & carolyn Knight
social work educators and practitioners have had an ongoing
debate whether the profession is primarily a science or
an art. the pendulum has swung back and forth, with the current
tilt toward scientific explanations and formulations.

evidence-based practice is the most symbolic manifestation of
this tilt. the authors propose an alternative approach
to practice that integrates, rather than separates, the art and
science traditions. evidence-guided practice incorporates
research findings, theoretical constructs, and a repertoire of
professional competencies and skills consistent with the
profession’s values and ethics and the individual social
worker’s distinctive style. major assumptions, as well as
challenges,
associated with the model are identified. a case example
illustrates major concepts of the model.
impliCations For praCtiCe
• social workers are encouraged not only to engage in
theoretically informed and evidence-based practice
but also to maintain their creativity, authenticity,
and flexibility.
From their very beginning in the settlement and char-
ity organization society movements, and throughout
the evolution of the profession, social work educa-
tors and practitioners have had an intense and ongoing
internal debate: Is social work primarily a science or an
art? The pendulum has swung back and forth. Its current
tilt is toward scientific explanations and formulations, as
reflected in the evidence-based approach to practice. We

argue that the science of evidence-based practice versus
the art of spontaneous practice is an artificial dichotomy.
in this article, the major tenets of evidence-based
practice are first summarized, as are its advantages
and limitations. We then describe an approach to prac-
tice that integrates rather than separates the science
and art traditions, an approach we intentionally term
evidence-guided practice (egP). We use evidenced-
guided rather than evidenced-informed because the
term guided suggests that evidence is used to facili-
tate professional action. ample opportunities also are
available for social workers to use theory, professional
experiences, and practice wisdom. We believe that the
concept of guided has more of an action orientation
than informed.
Evidence-based practice: major Assumptions
The concept of evidence-based practice actually origi-
nated in the medical profession (sackett, rosenberg,
gray, haynes, & richardson, 1996). The major prem-
ise of evidence-based medicine has been that decisions
for promoting health and treating illness should be
based on the best available medical evidence (borry,
schotsmans, & dierickx, 2006; Cochrane Collabora-
tion, 2010; gupta, 2009; taylor, 2012). evidence-based
medicine has been defined as “the conscientious, ex-
plicit, and judicious use of the current best evidence in
making decisions about the care of individuals” (sack-
ett, richardson, rosenberg, & haynes, 1997).
influenced by these developments in medicine, so-
cial work scholars have advocated an evidence-based
approach to social work practice (Corcoran, 2000;

gambrill, 1999; gibbs, 2003; gibbs & gambrill, 2002;
gossett & Weinman, 2007; Macgowan, 2008; rubin,
2007). evidence-based social work practice has been
defined as the “mindful and systematic identification,
analysis, evaluation, and synthesis of evidence of prac-
tice effectiveness, as a primary part of an integrative
and collaborative process concerning the selection
of application of service to members of target client
groups” (Cournoyer, 2004, p. 4).
evidence-based proponents argue that social work-
ers should base their practice decisions on a critical re-
view of available intervention strategies for a particu-
lar client’s challenges and difficulties. The intent is to
identify and employ those techniques that have been
found to help an individual, family, or group with a
specified problem. The social worker selects the most
relevant, empirically verified approach. evidence-
based practice also includes clinicians’ efforts to evalu-
ate their intervention efforts (baker & ritchey, 2009).
advocates of evidence-based practice justify the ap-
proach on ethical grounds, asserting that it encourages
professional accountability to clients, as well as reflects
the professional’s commitment to lifelong learning
and competent practice (gambrill, 2007; hudson,
2009; Zlotnik, 2007). further, advocates argue that it
encourages clients to be informed consumers of the
services they receive, in contrast to traditional ap-
proaches to practice that are viewed as “authority-
based” (gambrill, 1999).
http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1606%2F1044-
3894.4282&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2018-05-03

Gitterman & Knight | Evidence-Guided Practice: Integrating
the Science and Art of Social Work
71
Drawbacks
The simultaneous focus on the individual, family,
and/or group and wider social environment has come
to define social work as a profession and distinguishes
it from other helping professions. The early, diagnos-
tic model of social work practice has been supplanted
in social work education by an ecological approach
that takes into account the myriad forces that shape
human behavior. The worker considers forces within
and outside of the client as sources of problems and
targets for intervention.
since the professions of social work and medicine
have different functions, social work’s renewed reliance
on medical tenets is puzzling. The current evidence-
based emphasis in social work is all the more perplexing
since the medical profession has begun to rethink and
refine its own evidence-based approach (avis & fresh-
water, 2006; devisch & Murray, 2009; sestini, 2011).
Critics note that evidence-based medicine ignores the
needs of the individual patient (gupta, 2011; tannahill,
2008). Practicing physicians criticize evidence-based
medicine’s narrow focus and its lack of attention to the
range of variables that contribute to health and illness
(Kumar, grimmer-sommers, & hughes, 2010). a more
comprehensive definition of evidence-based medicine,
promulgated by its earliest proponents, reflects this
broader perspective: “evidence-based medicine is the
integration of the best research evidence with clinical
expertise and patient values” (emphasis added; sackett,
richardson, rosenberg, straus, & haynes, 2010, as cited

in oancea, 2010, p. 160).
The social work profession’s purpose is by definition
especially broad: to improve clients’ social and psy-
chological functioning; to enhance the transactions
between people and their environments; and to influ-
ence communities, organizations, and legislation to be
more socially just (gitterman & germain, 2008). so-
cial work takes place in a social context, embedded in,
among other things, poverty, unemployment, oppres-
sion, racism, homelessness, and community violence.
Complex social problems do not lend themselves to
narrow and discrete interventions that are the foun-
dation of evidence-based practice (Walker, Koroloff,
briggs, & friesen, 2007). The medical profession has
begun to rethink its evidence-based orientation. We
believe that social work, with its broader ecological fo-
cus, must do the same.
Limitations of research. evidence-based practice
proposes that specific interventions exist to solve most
types of problems, and social workers can find and
then use the most effective—the “best”—intervention.
These two premises have a seductive appeal. in the real
world of people with messy and overwhelming life
stressors, a logical, orderly, and sequential formula-
tion is reassuring. it is understandable that one would
be drawn to the idea that using technique X with
Client Y with Problem Z will lead to the intended out-
come. evidence-based practice assumes a linear rela-
tionship between research and practice, when in ac-
tuality the connections between theory, research, and
practice are complex and often elusive.
evidence-based social work practice emphasizes

studies that typically involve brief, cognitive, and
skill-focused interventions (reid, Kenaley, & Colvin
2004). typically, these studies focus on intervention
that affects individual change—whether the change is
in thinking processes, emotional responses, or specific
behaviors. The narrow focus of these interventions
readily lends itself to testing and replication. but this
does not mean that they truly reflect “best” practices,
since less straightforward, harder-to-measure prob-
lems and interventions are excluded (otto, Polutta, &
Ziegler, 2009; Wampold & bhati, 2004). reid (2002,
p. 277) captured the potential consequences of nar-
rowing our professional perspective:
an intervention may be effective in reducing a
problem of classroom behavior of a child in an
inner-city school, but this kind of effective practice
could be challenged on the grounds that social
work resources might be better spent involving
community members in changing a school that
is chaotically managed and under-funded. such
a school might not only produce an unending
stream of classroom behavior problems but might
be making a mockery of the very idea of providing
decent education for the children attending.
focusing exclusively on discrete, measurable indi-
vidual behavioral changes ignores the struggle people
experience in dealing with and surviving day-to-day
life challenges, struggles to which the social work pro-
fession is committed to addressing. “[Clients] thrash or
float through interventions without significant, lasting
impact because they fail to engage the core of people’s
lives—the chronic obstacles that bind one crisis to the
next, the extreme experiences…that have become cus-
tomary, the human relationships that may be as toxic

as they are supportive, the unique context in which
each person struggles to survive” (smyth & schorr,
2009, p. 5). Thus, evidence-based practice tends to be
overly reductionistic and simplistic (Cnaan & dichter,
2008; steiker et al., 2008).
a separate body of research suggests that whatever
model or intervention is used, the quality of the thera-
peutic relationship is mostly responsible for positive
or negative outcomes (smyth & schorr, 2009). for ex-
ample, Castonguay, goldfried, Wiser raue, and hayes
Families in society | Volume 94, no. 2
72
(1996) compared the impact of cognitive behavioral
techniques on changing the distorted cognitions of
depressed clients. The cognitive behavioral interven-
tions were compared with two less clearly defined vari-
ables: the quality of the therapeutic alliance and the
clients’ emotional involvement with the therapist. The
researchers found that these last two variables actually
were more highly related with clients’ progress than
the cognitive behavioral techniques under study.
There are more than 100 studies that support these
findings (andrews, 2000). essentially, these studies
indicate that effective therapeutic outcomes are more
related to the quality of the relationship established
between the worker and client, as well as the ability of
a worker to be attuned and responsive to client com-
munications; outcomes are much less related to spe-
cific techniques, models, and protocols (duncan 2001;

smyth & schorr, 2009).
further, the client is a partner in the therapeutic
enterprise (duncan & Miller, 2000; smyth & schorr,
2009). by focusing solely on what the worker does and
ignoring the client’s contributions, evaluation research
designs lead to questionable findings that are of limit-
ed utility. duncan (2001, p. 33) described the relevance
of the client’s contributions:
Why should it be a surprise that the very factors
that were operating in a client’s life before
counseling also have crucial effect on the helping
process? Clients, who are, for example, persistent,
open, and optimistic, who, for that matter, have
a supportive grandmother or are members of a
religious community, are more likely to make gains
in counseling.
finally, outcome studies are not neutral endeavors.
Many are designed and implemented by proponents of
the very approaches being evaluated. essentially, these
studies may be affected by “investigator allegiance”
(betts-adams, leCroy, & Matto, 2009, p. 171). fund-
ing initiatives and availability, primarily defined by
the federal government, as well as managed care re-
strictions by and large determine what type of research
will be valued and carried out. organizational, com-
munity, and collegial pressures also significantly influ-
ence design, measurement, and interpretation of data.
in addition, when practitioners undertake litera-
ture searches to find relevant empirical data, they
have no way of knowing whether a study’s findings
are reliable, valid, and generalizable to their settings
and their clients (tarrier, 2010). The fact that a jour-

nal publishes a study is not sufficient evidence of va-
lidity or reliability. Peer reviewers typically only re-
view researchers’ summary presentation of data and
rarely examine the raw data.
in a postreview of articles published in medical
journals, altman (2002, p. 12) found “considerable
evidence that many statistical and methodological
errors were common in published papers and that au-
thors failed to discuss the limitations of their findings
and that the importance of findings were consistently
exaggerated.” even if peer reviewers successfully re-
jected invalid studies, altman (2002) further discov-
ered that most papers ultimately found acceptance in
other medical and scientific journals. evidence-based
social work practices “can only be as good as the re-
search on which decisions are to be made” (Margi-
son, 2001, p. 174). The question remains, therefore,
how much confidence can social work practitioners
have in the validity and reliability of findings avail-
able from outcome studies?
Inconsistency with contemporary practice. Per-
haps most fundamentally, the realities of contempo-
rary social work practice work against a purely evi-
dence-based orientation. Most social workers simply
do not have access to bibliographic databases and the
peer-reviewed literature, both of which are required to
practice from an evidence-based foundation (Knight,
in press; gira, Kessler, & Poertner, 2004; ruffolo, sa-
vas, neal, Capobianco, & reynolds, 2008). even if they
did have such access, most practitioners lack the time
to read and review such resources, given more im-
mediate and pressing demands associated with their
practice (osterling & austin, 2008).

despite the increased emphasis on teaching social
work students about research, evidence continues to
suggest that practicing social workers lack the skills
and expertise necessary to operate from an evidence-
based foundation (Knight, in press; lord & iudice,
2011; Mullen, bledsoe, & bellamy, 2008; staudt, 2007).
finally, evidence-based practice does not take into ac-
count the team-oriented, multidisciplinary nature of
much of social work practice. Clients often simultane-
ously receive multiple services, making it difficult to
discern cause-and-effect relationships (bledsoe et al.,
2007; soydan, 2007).
Evidenced-guided practice:
major Assumptions
Various scholars have been actively seeking to build
bridges between the art and science traditions, prefer-
ring to use terms such as evidence-guided or evidence-
informed practice (betts-adams et al., 2009; Klein &
bloom, 1995; letendre & Wayne, 2008; Macgowan,
2003; nevo & slonim-nevo, 2011; Zayas, gonza-
lez, & hanson, 2003). We intentionally use the term
evidence-guided to refer to an approach to practice
in which interventions are suggested, rather than
prescribed, by research findings. This is more than a
73
semantic distinction. evidence-guided practice pos-
sesses the same ethical advantages associated with ev-

idence-based practice. however, it also recognizes the
uniqueness of the individual and the inherent dignity
and worth of the person. evidence-guided practice
reinforces client empowerment and clients’ right to
self-determination. finally, egP is consistent with the
profession’s commitment to vulnerable populations
and social justice, since it adopts an ecological view of
client problems and worker interventions.
Attention to Range of Variables That Affect
Intervention Outcome
evidence-guided practice encourages practitioners to
be consumers of research and to rely upon best prac-
tices. but it also requires practitioners to attend to the
subtle, harder-to-measure variables that also influence
intervention efficacy. as noted, these include, among
others, the worker–client relationship, client and
worker characteristics, worker skill, and practice and
cultural context (Palinkas et al., 2009; Whaley & da-
vis, 2007). Thyer (2010) argued, for example,
there are no such things as evidence-based
interventions. there are research supported
interventions…the phrase evidence-based practice
refers to a ProCess of choosing one’s course of
action, based upon an integration of many different
factors, research evidence being one, but client
preferences and values being another, professional
ethics being a third, one’s own practice skills being
a 4th, environmental resources being a 5th, etc. no
one of these factors has primacy over the others,
even the research evidence.
Thus, egP is inclusive, and it recognizes the range
of variables that come into play in the effective help-
ing relationship. evidence-guided practice means that

social workers should attend to findings from outcome
studies that have been validated and sufficiently rep-
licated. Where egP parts ways with evidence-based
practice is the recognition that the particular choice
of technique to address client difficulties will hinge on
the unique needs and desires of the individual client.
The worker has to be prepared to be creative and come
up with other strategies if those that have been found
to be effective do not work with the particular client.
tarrier (2010, p. 134) summed up the balance of at-
tending to the individual and to the research base:
as a clinician i have to deal with patients as i find
them with all the idiosyncrasies and heterogeneity
that it involves.…to discharge [this responsibility]
i need to be able to derive from the evidence base
the best treatment for that patient as dictated by the
empirical research.…the researcher has established
that a particular treatment works (or not) in
general; the clinician is responsible for application of
evidence to individual patients. (emphasis added)
unlike evidence-based practice, egP explicitly rec-
ognizes relevant theory. Theories, as well as research,
provide significant guidelines for practice. Theories
about phases of individual, family, and group devel-
opment; about ethnic/racial, religious, spiritual, and
sexual identity development; about individual, family,
and group behavior; and about how people change the
structure of social workers’ assessments and suggest
the direction that intervention may take (gray & Mc-
donald, 2006; shdaimah, 2009).
While both theory and research findings about a
broad range of variables are essential to social work

practice, they are not sufficient. The application of
theory and research to practice requires critical think-
ing (gambrill, 2006). This is defined as the ability to
define an issue/stressor/problem; to “distinguish, ap-
praise, and integrate multiple sources of knowledge:”
to formulate a tentative practice direction(s); to self-
monitor, to self-reflect, and to “attend to professional
roles and boundaries” (Council on social Work educa-
tion, 2008, p. 3).
Attention to Artistry
Theory and research evidence provide a base for a dis-
ciplined, scientific approach to engaging and helping
clients. but social workers must also possess the au-
tonomy and flexibility to improvise and to be sponta-
neous. The worlds of theory and research are logical,
orderly, and sequential. in contrast, the lives of people
are confusing, disorderly, and contemporaneous. The
very act of finding the connections among theory, re-
search, and practice often requires a great deal of curi-
osity and creativity (gitterman, 1991).
our needs for certainty and constancy can com-
promise our natural curiosity and ability to tolerate
ambiguity. Prescriptive theoretical frameworks and
evidenced-based protocols may have the unintended
consequence of rendering professional practice more
rigid, devoid of spontaneity and authenticity, and less
responsive to the “messiness” of clients’ lives.
in a particularly telling study, henry, strupp, butler,
schacht, and binder (1993) examined clinicians’ behav-
iors before and after they were trained in using manu-
als to guide their interventions. The researchers found
that those who followed these prescribed interventions
demonstrated “unexpected deterioration in certain in-

terpersonal and interactional aspects of therapy” (p.
438). The therapists reported that their spontaneity and
intuition were curtailed, and clients felt “subjected” to
treatment rather than engaged in treatment. The re-
74
searchers further observed that “after training, thera-
pists were judged by their clients to be less approving
and supportive, less optimistic, and more authoritative
and defensive” (henry et al., p. 439).
natural curiosity, a willingness to take a risk and
follow hunches, and the ability to learn from mistakes
and make more sophisticated mistakes are the sine quo
non of artistry, as are the ability to “go with the flow,”
to follow client cues, and to be transparent and genu-
ine in our relationships with our clients. informality,
spontaneity, and humor, when appropriate, provide a
significant base for an artistic approach to engaging
and helping clients.
social workers must each integrate professional
methods, knowledge, and skills with their distinctive
style and unique persona (Cnaan & dichter, 2008).
Without this integration, clients often perceive social
workers as mechanical and rote. When social work-
ers rigidly adhere to prescribed interventions, they are
unable to be authentically present or actively listen to
clients’ verbal and nonverbal responses. Professionals
must have the flexibility to follow clients’ messages
and their own professional judgments. in fact, compe-

tence, the capacity to self-monitor, and autonomy are
precisely what makes a social worker a professional.
Practice Illustration
to illustrate an evidence-guided approach to practice,
the authors drew on the group work modality, where
the debate regarding the artistry and science of group
work has been especially intense. group work is in-
creasingly reliant on evidence-based manuals (Caplan
& Thomas, 2003). Critics of the “manualization” of
group work argue that control of the group rests sole-
ly in the hands of the worker, which undermines the
empowerment of members. further, the fixed agenda
found in a manual artificially defines members’ needs
as well as indicators of success. Perhaps most funda-
mentally, the emphasis is on content—that is, what is
in the manual—rather than on the process and mem-
bers’ here-and-now interactions with one another and
with the worker (gitterman, 2011).
Consistent with an evidence-guided orientation,
however, group workers are beginning to recognize the
benefits of evidence-based manuals (galinsky, 2003).
a manual has the potential to sensitize the worker to
the issues that may surface in the group and provide
both the leader and members with a direction for work
(galinsky, terzian, & fraser, 2006). further, clear ob-
jectives and outcomes have the potential to enhance
the overall effectiveness of the group intervention.
from an evidence-guided perspective, the group
worker must be well versed in group work research,
theory, and process in addition to the contents of the
manual. for example, the social worker facilitating a
group must know that much of the driving force of the

group experience is provided by the interplay of mem-
bers’ feelings about the worker’s authority and feelings
about becoming close to each other. in most instances,
the preoccupation with the worker’s authority either
precedes or occurs simultaneously with group mem-
bers learning to trust and become close with each oth-
er (bartolomeo, 2010; schiller, 2010). if the worker ex-
pects to have her or his trustworthiness, authority, and
competence tested in advance, the worker will have an
easier time depersonalizing the testing and developing
appropriate interventions.
to specifically illustrate this concept, consider the
following scenario. Marcus is a social worker facili-
tating an anger management group for adolescents
who are required to attend because of their involve-
ment with the juvenile justice system. Most have been
charged with drug-related offenses and/or assault.
Marcus is using an evidence-based manual that relies
primarily on cognitive behavioral strategies. The man-
ual includes 10 weekly lessons that teach members,
among other things, possible sources of their anger,
how to identify triggers, and techniques to manage
their anger. each session of the group emphasizes a
different lesson and builds upon the previous session.
The manual is prescriptive in that each lesson is laid
out in great detail, including suggested worker com-
ments and required member activities. spontaneous
exchanges between members and between the mem-
bers and the leader are not addressed, implying that
the leader should provide structure for each minute of
the hourlong sessions.
in the first session, the six members of the group—
all young men ages 15 to 17—are silent and appear to
be hostile and disinterested. Marcus astutely recogniz-

es that he cannot immediately jump into the manual’s
“lesson” for the first session, which includes defini-
tions of anger and what triggers angry responses in in-
dividuals. if not addressed, members’ resentment and
anger would lead only to an “illusion of work” (shul-
man, 2009), in which they might go through the mo-
tions of listening to Marcus’s “lectures” and engaging
in the required activities without any real change in
their thinking or behavior taking place. The challenge
for Marcus is that his agency requires him to follow the
manual, so he has to find a way to integrate the lessons
included in the first session with what he sees right in
front of him.
after explaining his role and the purpose of the
group (evidence-based practice that enhances mem-
ber commitment to the group), Marcus directly ac-
knowledges members’ apparent anger about being in
the group rather than starting with the lesson for the
session. he makes this observation: “today we are sup-
posed to talk about what anger is and what causes us
75
to get angry. given how you all are feeling about being
here, i suspect you can tell me a thing or two about
both of these issues!” This comment initially is met
with hostile silence, but Marcus persists and observes,
“i am wondering whether the group’s silence is a sign
of members being pissed off about being here?” one
of the members, Jonah, responds, “Yeah, man, this is

bull---t. i don’t need no group. i just need to be left
alone!” Marcus then observes, “Jonah is upset, and i
bet he’s not the only one.” other members nod their
heads in agreement. Marcus then says, “Perhaps we
can start there, with you guys talking about the fact
that you are angry that you have been made to come to
this group when you don’t think you need it.” at this
point, samuel, another member, volunteers, “i smoke a
little dope some of the time. so what? it ain’t bothering
nobody, so i don’t see why i have to be here!”
This group is well on its way to being a meaningful
experience for the members, despite their initial un-
willingness to participate. Marcus demonstrates that
one need not choose artistry over evidence or vice ver-
sa. Marcus’s skill as a group worker is apparent as is his
understanding of group dynamics, individual member
behavior, and the group worker’s role. he does not
lose sight of the fact that he is operating from an ev-
idence-based manual that depends upon a particular
sequencing of content. Marcus is skillfully able to link
the two—the process that is occurring in the here and
now with the content that is outlined in the manual.
Marcus reveals his critical thinking ability when he as-
sesses what members’ behavior means and links their
reactions to the intent of the session and purpose of the
group in a meaningful and genuine way.
Marcus quickly realizes that he does not need to
talk hypothetically about members’ anger and what
causes it, as the emotion is right there, staring him
(and others in the group) in the face. had Marcus ig-
nored members’ actual feelings in favor of an academic
discussion of anger and its causes, as dictated by the
manual, he would have lost the group before it even
started. as he acknowledges the young men’s feelings

about the group, Marcus is following the lesson plan
for the first session. but he is doing it in a way that has
meaning for the members and capitalizes on their im-
mediate, here-and-now reactions.
Implications for Social work Education
and practice
evidence-guided practice requires that students be
taught to think critically and to be self-aware. They also
must be encouraged to employ the science of social work
in a way that is genuine and reflects their uniqueness
as individuals. social work education also must teach
students to not just tolerate ambiguity, but embrace it.
social work education must do a better job of prepar-
ing students to value research findings and use them in
their practice. The solution to this problem lies not in
simply throwing more research terms and statistics at
social work students. evidence-guided practice should
be presented and modeled in the practice courses.
staudt, bates, blake, and shoffner (2003–2004), for ex-
ample, have developed the systematic planned practice
model (sPP). Consistent with egP, the emphasis in this
model is on multiple sources of knowledge and critical
thinking. “sPP is not an evaluation design, but rather a
way of thinking about and conceptualizing practice so
that evaluation becomes an integral part of practice….
Within the sPP framework, practitioners must make
explicit their practice decisions, provide rationales for
these decisions, and specify the practice implications
of the decisions” (staudt et al., p. 71).
students themselves have recognized the value of
learning about research concepts in practice courses
(staudt, 2007). Presenting research material in meth-

ods courses legitimizes its importance for practice and
demystifies it for students. Yet, egP is more than the
application of research concepts, as we have discussed.
evidence-guided practice reflects an ecological per-
spective and depends upon worker self-awareness, use
of self, critical thinking, and a solid grounding in the-
ory, each of which should already be an integral part of
any practice/methods course.
in a different vein, egP requires support from em-
ploying organizations and academic institutions in the
form of access and time for social workers to consult
the literature, particularly bibliographic databases. in
addition, the professional literature needs to be pre-
sented in a way that allows practitioners to easily and
quickly grasp essential information (osterling & aus-
tin, 2008; staudt, dulmus, & bennett, 2003). several
recent developments in the field are promising. gary
holden’s information for Practice website (http://ifp.
nyu.edu/) is easy to use and practitioner friendly. it
contains recent research relevant to contemporary
social work practice and is available free of charge to
anyone who logs on to the site. similarly, the Min-
nesota Center for social Work research (http://www.
cehd.umn.edu/ssw/research) regularly publishes a free
newsletter that summarizes recent research and pres-
ents it in a way that is accessible to practicing social
workers. unfortunately, it is unlikely that most social
workers practicing today are aware of these and other
such resources that support egP (lord & iudice, 2011).
social workers are caught between agency mandates
for documenting positive outcomes and what they
have been taught about an ecological, client-centered
approach in social work. The challenge is to encour-
age agencies and funding sources to adopt this more

ecologically focused approach to practice. evidence-
http://ifp.nyu.edu
http://ifp.nyu.edu
http://www.cehd.umn.edu/ssw/research
http://www.cehd.umn.edu/ssw/research
76
guided practice provides practitioners with the tools
necessary to employ research findings, and it has
the added advantage of encouraging workers to take
into account the range of variables that inevitably af-
fect practice outcomes. borrowing from smyth and
schorr’s (2009) discussion of what it takes to provide
effective interventions, particularly to marginalized
populations, the authors propose that egP adhere to
the following principles:
1. trusting relationships—between worker and client,
between client and significant others—are central to
effective outcomes.
2. Clients must be active and informed partners in the
social work endeavor.
3. Clear standards for practice must be balanced
against flexibility in the face of client needs
and circumstances.
4. The agency and worker must take into account and
be prepared to intervene in the wider
social environment.

5. Workers must be accountable for their actions
and must continuously use research to guide their
practice and refine and improve program design and
delivery of services.
conclusion
We conclude with the suggestion that efforts to identify
best practices must continue, but must be expanded to
include the more subtle, hard-to-measure variables that
we have identified. such research is not impossible to
conduct, as the results of studies cited in this article in-
dicate. What is required, however, is greater advocacy
on the part of social work practitioners, educators, and
researchers for financial and organizational support for
a broader, ecologically based approach to research.
increased attention also needs to be devoted to iden-
tifying how to get information to practitioners in a
way that makes it easy for them to use. as noted, there
are forums that already provide valuable information
to guide clinicians in their practice, and more such
sources are appearing all the time. however, these in-
formation clearinghouses are only as good as the con-
sumers who use them.
social workers must embrace scientific methods to
guide their practice. They also must uphold their pro-
fessional responsibilities and commitment to social
justice and to a multidimensional view of clients and
the challenges they face. and finally, they must hold
on to their humanity, spontaneity, and passion for
making a difference in people’s lives. evidence-guid-
ed practice, as described in this article, allows social
workers to do just that.

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Alex gitterman, edD, Zachs professor of social Work,
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of Connecticut. carolyn knight, msW, phD, lGsW, professor,
Uni-
versity of maryland. Correspondence: [email protected];
University of Connecticut, school of social Work, 1798 asylm
ave.,
West Hartford, Ct 06117.
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and
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manuscript received: June 18, 2012
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C H A P T E R 5
Collaborative Inquiry
An Anthropological Approach
to “Intervening” with Families
The first four chapters examined conceptual models or ways of
thinking
about families that position helpers as appreciative allies in the
process
of engagement, assessment, and contracting. These next five
chapters
examine clinical practices or ways of interacting with families
that invite
respect, connection, curiosity, and hope. This chapter begins
with a brief
reconsideration of the process of “intervening” and then offers
an orga-
nizational framework for collaborative inquiry that positions
therapists
as co-researchers who are working with families rather than
acting on
them. An extended clinical consultation illustrates this
framework. Sub-
sequent chapters take up different elements of this framework in
more
detail.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO “INTERVENE”?
Family therapy has historically had a strong emphasis on
intervention.
Within the mental health field, family therapy represented not
only a dif-
ferent way of thinking about clients and problems but also a

significant
shift in ways of interacting with clients. It began as a radical
move away
from the orthodoxy of psychoanalysis and contained a shift
from under-
standing problems as the goal of treatment to doing something
about
problems in a short time (Ravella, 1994). In this way, family
therapy
155
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on 10/29/2021 11:39 AM via SIMMONS UNIVERSITY
LIBRARIES
AN: 211282 ; William C. Madsen.; Collaborative Therapy with
Multi-Stressed Families, Second Edition
Account: s4279181.main.eds

became quite interventionist. Cecchin, Lane, and Ray (1994)
have
described an interventionist model as one in which a “therapist
orga-
nizes an action, suggestion or prescription for the purpose of
having a
predictable result” (p. 13). Many techniques in the mental
health field
are grounded in an assumption that we can have predictable
results and
get clients to see or do things in particular ways at particular
times. For
example, we offer an insight that we hope will have particular
effects,
we teach skills that we hope clients will use in particular ways,
we set up
enactments to achieve a particular outcome, we reframe
behavior to pro-
mote a particular perspective. In each of these situations, we
enter with
a predictable result in mind. Often, that hoped for result is
informed
by an implicit model of how families should function (e.g., what
consti-
tutes “appropriate” generational boundaries, or “differentiated”
func-
tioning, or “healthy” negotiation of life cycle transitions), and
our
efforts attempt to bring family functioning in line with
normative
standards.
Unfortunately, our focus on rectifying family dysfunction can
pull

us into an instrumental orientation in which we engage with
certainty
and a sense of mission. When we begin specifying how things
should be
in clients’ lives, we risk losing sight of client preferences. We
can get out
ahead of clients and end up blocking their view of desired
futures. When
clients lose sight of their preferred directions in life, they may
submit to
professional preferences and end up following someone else’s
agenda,
which doesn’t support long-lasting change. Alternatively, they
may
actively resist our efforts or become pseudo-compliant,
pretending to
comply and hoping we’ll go away. Hence, our attempts to
achieve a pre-
dictable result without explicitly negotiating it with a family
may end up
making our work harder.
The belief that we can get a family to see something in a
particular
way or bring about a particular outcome has been referred to as
a belief
in “instructive interaction.” A number of writers have suggested
that
instructive interaction is impossible and that we cannot get a
family to
respond to interventions in a predetermined fashion. Although
we enter
interactions with particular hopes and intentions, we cannot
determine
the specific effects of our actions on others. Our interventions
may trig-

ger responses, but they do not determine them. We cannot get
clients to
do or see things that we want when we want. The idea that
instructive
interaction is impossible may or may not be “true.” However, it
can be a
very useful idea in helping us step back from nonproductive
struggles
with clients and opening possibilities for alternative
interactions. At the
same time, it is impossible to avoid influencing others. As
Cecchin et al.
(1994) state:
156 COLLABORATIVE THERAPY WITH MULTI-STRESSED
FAMILIES
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When people interact, they inevitably influence each other, but
not always
with predictable results. Intervention, when thought about in
this way, is
unavoidable, because to interact means to intervene in the
private space of
the other. No matter how much we try, influence is unavoidable.
. . .
Although it seems true that we do, in fact, influence one
another, we cannot
predict the outcomes of our efforts. (p. 15)
If we acknowledge that interventions do not have predictable

results,
then every interaction with clients is an intervention.
Everything we say
and do has an effect on clients. It is impossible to be
noninterventionist.
The issue is not whether we are interventionist or
noninterventionist, but
what stance we hold as we intervene.
Harlene Anderson and Harry Goolishian (1988, 1992) have
coined
the phrase “not-knowing” to suggest a particular stance in
collaborative
conversations. A not-knowing stance refers to an attitude and
belief that
a “therapist does not have access to privileged information, can
never
fully understand another person, always needs to be in a state of
being
informed by the other, and always needs to learn more about
what has
been said or may not have been said” (Anderson, 1997, p. 134).
As
Anderson (1995, pp. 34–36) emphasizes:
A not-knowing position does not mean the therapist does not
know any-
thing or that the therapist throws away or does not use what she
or he
already knows. It does not mean the therapist just sits back and
does noth-
ing or cannot offer an opinion. It does mean, however, that the
therapist’s
contributions, whether they are questions, opinions,
speculations, or sug-
gestions, are presented in a manner that conveys a tentative

posture and
portrays respect for and openness to the other and to newness.
Despite Anderson’s (1995, 1997, 2005) repeated attempts to
clarify a
not-knowing stance, it has often been misinterpreted as
dismissing
professional knowledge (perhaps an ironic example of the myth
of
instructive interaction). Another framing of this juxtaposition of
know-
ing and not-knowing that may trigger fewer misperceptions
would be a
juxtaposition of certainty and curiosity (Amundson, Stewart, &
Valen-
tine, 1993). For this discussion, I draw on the phrase “cultural
curios-
ity,” as introduced in Chapter 1, to refer to a continuing attempt
to
actively elicit a client’s particular meaning rather than assume
we
already know it or that it is the same as ours.
A striving for cultural curiosity begins with a conviction that
clients
are the experts on their experience and an attempt to fully enter
into and
honor that experience. It includes a willingness to question what
we
think we know and a commitment to continually learn more
about what
Collaborative Inquiry 157

clients have to say about their experience. This attitude is
reflected in a
Robert Louis Stevenson quote, “To travel hopefully is a better
thing than
to arrive.” Although we cannot arrive at a complete grasp of
another
culture, we can always travel hopefully toward a better
understanding.
Kaethe Weingarten (1995, 1997, 1998) has discussed a similar
process
that she refers to as “radical listening.” She characterizes
radical listen-
ing as the “shifting of my attention from what I think about
what my cli-
ents are telling me to trying to understand what my clients think
about
what they are telling me” (Weingarten, 1998, p. 5). This shift
could also
be summarized as a movement from assigning our meaning to
clients’
actions to eliciting their meaning. In this regard, I have often
referred to
it as listening on client turf rather than on professional turf.
Each of
these phrases (“not-knowing,” “cultural curiosity,” “radical
listening,”
“listening on client turf”) captures a shared position from which
to
engage clients. This position does not disavow therapist
knowledge or
influence, but draws on it in a different way. In this position,
there is an

acknowledgement that it is impossible to impose meaning or get
people
to do or see particular things at particular times, along with a
commit-
ment to engaging clients in ways that enable them to generate
alternative
meanings through invitational interaction.
MOVING TOWARD INVITATIONAL INTERACTION
The following story sets a context for discussing the power of
invita-
tional interaction. A number of years ago I conducted a study on
the
interaction of beliefs held by patients, spouses, and physicians
in situa-
tions of chronic medical noncompliance (Madsen, 1992). One of
the
couples I interviewed consisted of Pat, a 40-year-old white
woman
whose hypertension escalated out of control when she drank,
and Jack,
her 35-year-old white boyfriend with a long history of alcohol
misuse. I
met with them in their home. About 5 minutes into the
interview, Jack
excused himself and went into the kitchen. He returned with two
cans of
beer, offered one to me, and when I declined, shrugged, drained
the first,
and started on the second. I had a number of reactions. I was
shocked
and angry that he was drinking. I worried that it would “bias”
the
results of the interview and wondered whether I would be able
to use

this interview in my study. At the same time, I didn’t feel
comfortable
asking Jack not to drink during the interview. This was the
couple’s
home, and they had graciously let me into it. They were not
being paid
for the study, and I did not have a relationship with them in
which I had
an authorization to instruct them on what I might consider
“proper eti-
quette.” I sat there in my discomfort, unsure of what to say. I
decided to
FAMILIES
say nothing and continued the interview. Jack drank throughout
the
interview, polishing off a six-pack by the time we finished. In
the inter-
view, we focused on (among other things) the potential
consequences of
various decisions they might make about alcohol use (e.g., If
Pat kept
drinking and Jack stopped what would happen to her health and
their
relationship? If Jack kept drinking and Pat stopped, what would
happen
to her health and their relationship? What would happen if they
both

kept drinking? What would happen if they both stopped
drinking?).
In the course of the interview, the following story emerged.
Pat’s
original husband had abandoned the family (for which she
blamed her-
self), and she was committed to establishing a two-parent
family for her
daughter. She believed that if she kept drinking, hypertension
would end
her life and her daughter would lose a mother. She also believed
that if
she quit drinking, it would end her relationship with Jack
(whose previ-
ous marriage had ended when his wife quit drinking) and her
daughter
would lose a father. Pat felt caught between two pulls. If she
didn’t stop
drinking, her daughter would lose a mother, and if she did stop
drinking,
her daughter would lose a father. As I asked about the effects of
this
dilemma on Pat, she disclosed that it made her feel like a bad
mother
and left her terribly depressed. She felt that she was caught in a
bind that
she couldn’t escape and would subsequently become hopeless
and end
up drinking to numb the pain. As we talked about the effects of
this
dilemma on their relationship and their future together, the
couple
became reflective and slightly sad. I left the interview feeling
appreciative
of the power of this dilemma and its effects on Pat and Jack.

Interestingly, in a 6-month follow-up with their physician, I
found
out that the couple had quit drinking the day after the interview
and had
maintained sobriety since. In fact, seven of the nine patients
interviewed
in the study were now managing their chronic medical
conditions for the
first time in 2 years. A number of patients and physicians
attributed that
change to the development of different perspectives that came
out of the
interview process. One informant from the study put it this way:
“I’m thinking about the difficulty I’ve had managing my
medical con-
dition in a whole different way. It makes sense to me now that
I’ve
had difficulty managing it and I’m not blaming myself for it.
This
shift has given me some room to go about dealing with my
medical
condition in a completely different way.”
Although the changes in Pat’s and Jack’s lives were dramatic, I
had
not been attempting to disrupt their drinking or to get Pat to
better man-
age her hypertension. The interview with Pat and Jack occurred
in the
context of a research study rather than a clinical intervention,
and yet it

had had a profound impact on the couple. Although my
intention had
been to gather information for a research study, I had assumed
that the
process of gathering that information might open new
possibilities for
Pat and Jack. My experience in this study was very much in line
with the
efforts of Lorraine Wright (1990), who developed a research
interven-
tion for families in which traditional family therapy had proved
unsuc-
cessful. In this approach, the therapist would explain that she
had no
further ideas for how to be helpful to the family and then offer
the fam-
ily an opportunity to participate in a research project that
focused on
helping professionals learn how families coped with chronic
illnesses.
Wright found that this shift was not simply an attempt to
redefine family
therapy, but rather one that changed the context of her clinical
work
from therapy to research. She explained that this shift in context
had a
profound effect on therapists. It reduced their usual therapeutic
impulse
to inform, instruct, direct, or advise family members and
contributed to

the development of an investment in learning from the family
rather
than changing the family. Families responded positively, and
Wright
(1990) concluded, “We facilitate the greatest change in our
clinical work
when we focus on learning from our clients rather than
believing that
they are learning from us” (p. 484).
THERAPY AS CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
The shift in emphasis described by Wright (1990) fits with an
anthropo-
logical metaphor for the process of interacting with clients and
families.
In this metaphor, we can think of clients and their families as
foreign cul-
tures. We can think of ourselves as cultural anthropologists or
ethno-
graphic researchers who have been given the opportunity to
enter into
the life space of clients and learn all that we can about the
particularities
of their culture. An example of this metaphor in action comes
from the
work of Marilyn O’Neill and Gaye Stockell (1991). They
worked in an
Australian day treatment center in which eight male consumers
were dis-
satisfied with the system and expressed that dissatisfaction
through a
variety of destructive behaviors that included abusive language,
property
destruction, ongoing substance abuse, and a disregard for others
at the

center. These behaviors had managed to alienate many of the
staff, who
saw excluding the men from the center as the only viable course
of
action. O’Neill and Stockell proposed instead to run a group for
the
men. They decided to view the men as experts in dealing with
chronic
mental illness and invited them to a group that explored the
men’s
expertise in managing mental illness. Drawing on an
anthropological
stance, they elicited the men’s experience of mental illness, the
effects it
had on their lives, and the ways in which they coped with it. As
they
FAMILIES
listened to the men’s experiences of the disempowering effects
of mental
illness, they resisted the temptation to give advice, offer ideas,
or make
judgments about their situations. The aim of the group consisted
of elic-
iting and documenting the expertise the men had in managing
chronic
mental illness. The therapists’ roles consisted of asking
questions to

guide the process. When asked to provide a name for the group,
the
men initially decided to call it “The Losers’ Group.” However,
halfway
through the group, as the participants’ expertise in managing
mental
illness became more solidified, the men petitioned to change the
group’s
name to “The Worthy of Discussion Group.” By the end of the
group, the men viewed themselves differently and had made
significant
improvements in their lives (including improvements in daily
living skills
that were never directly addressed in the group). O’Neill and
Stockell
(1991) summarized their learning:
We observed that changes were occurring for the men. We were
also aware
that these changes were not due to any teachings about problems
and solu-
tions but from the discovery that their special knowledge, skills,
and quali-
ties had enabled them to choose a preferred outcome for
themselves. The
men became responsible for choosing the directions that their
lives should
take. Our role in these groups was described succinctly by one
of the partic-
ipants: “You [therapists] have been asking us instead of telling
us.” (p. 205)
This example characterizes a directional shift in information
flow. Infor-
mation is not coming from the therapist to the client. Instead, it
is being

jointly developed in the space between client and therapist
though a
questioning process. This shift could be described as a
collaborative co-
research project.
David Epston (1999) is perhaps the person most widely
associated
with the term “co-research.” He initially developed co-research
as an
approach to situations in which children and adolescents with
life-
threatening chronic illnesses were not responding to more
conventional
treatments. Epston became convinced that clients held
alternative bodies
of knowledge (consisting of abilities, skills, and wisdom) that
could be
profoundly useful if tapped. These varieties of knowledge were
often
obscured, and David engaged families in a co-research project
to resur-
rect them and make them more available for client use. This was
not a
process of going out and discovering preexisting knowledge, but
rather a
process of eliciting, elaborating, and bearing witness to
abilities, skills,
and types of knowledge that are jointly developed in the context
of the interview. For example, in the Worthy of Discussion
groups run
by O’Neill and Stockell (1991), the wisdom offered by the men
in
the group was wisdom that was developed in the context of the
group
interviews. This idea of jointly developing shared knowledge

rather
than discovering preexisting knowledge is at the heart of
collaborative
inquiry. Epston began eliciting and elaborating client
knowledge in inter-
views and subsequently developed written collections or
archives of that
knowledge that could be made available to other clients. One
example of
this is his efforts to develop anti-anorexia archives that contain
client
wisdom about the ways in which anorexia as a problem has
affected cli-
ents and their families along with accounts of how clients and
families
have coped with and resisted the effects of anorexia (Maisel,
Epston, &
Borden, 2004). The process of making this knowledge available
to oth-
ers is both a gift to others and a profoundly empowering
repositioning
of clients from being objects on the receiving end of services to
consul-
tants who have something to offer others. The purpose of
generating
knowledge in co-research is different from the usual purpose of
generat-

ing research-based knowledge. Co-research makes no claim to
be an
objective or neutral process. It has the explicit purpose of
supporting cli-
ents in reflecting on their current relationship with a problem
and, if that
relationship does not fit with client preferences, inciting and
sustaining
resistance to the problem. This is activist knowledge with the
explicit
purpose of helping people change their lives. The different
stories high-
lighted here illustrate the power and possibilities of invitational
interac-
tion and co-research. The next section examines in more detail
the pro-
cess of what I’ve come to call “collaborative inquiry.”
ENGAGING IN COLLABORATIVE INQUIRY
Collaborative inquiry can be a co-research project in which
therapists
engage clients in a joint exploration of preferred directions in
life, with
an attempt to identify elements that constrain and/or sustain
their pur-
suit of desired lives and an examination of ways in which
clients address
constraining elements and draw on sustaining ones. In this
process, we
can view professional expertise as the ability to ask questions
that elicit,
elaborate, and acknowledge family abilities, skills, and know-
how that
have been previously obscured. I refer to this as collaborative
inquiry to

suggest a partnership in which we tap the resourcefulness of
both clients
and clinicians. The process is not a simple conveyance of
professional
expertise to clients, nor a simple eliciting of client ideas.
Rather, it
acknowledges the shared knowledge that can be developed in
the con-
text of therapeutic relationships.
The purpose of collaborative inquiry is to make space for the
emer-
gence of alternative stories that will support people in moving
forward
in their lives and facilitate their accessing important abilities,
skills,
and knowledge. Clients are offered an opportunity to reflect on
the
FAMILIES
dominant stories that have organized their lives, the degree to
which
those stories fit or do not fit for them. If the stories do not fit,
collabora-
tive inquiry provides opportunities for people to develop and
enact
richer stories that open possibilities and have the potential to
carry them

forward in their lives. This is not a process of substituting “old,
bad”
stories for “new, improved” ones, but rather expanding from
sparse sto-
ries that are often constraining and pathologizing to broader,
richer sto-
ries that acknowledge difficulties and also open new
possibilities.
In the process of collaborative inquiry, our questions become
vitally
important. Although questions are often used to gather
information for
our benefit as clinicians, they can also be designed for the
benefit of cli-
ents. As clients contemplate the questions we ask and undertake
a men-
tal search in responding to them, they have particular
experiences of self.
When such experience is different and powerful, this process
can have
transformative effects. Although I view this as a collaborative
process, I
am not suggesting that it is an egalitarian partnership. Clients
are in a
much more vulnerable position in this relationship, and it is
important
to acknowledge and be mindful of the power differential that
exists. In
this process, clinicians have a particular expertise in inquiry
and take on
a leadership role in the organization of questions, but remain
account-
able to clients for both the direction of the inquiry and the
effects of the
questioning process on clients.

There are a number of benefits to framing our work as a
collabora-
tive co-research project. The process holds the potential to
engage clients
as active agents in their lives rather than as passive objects of
our efforts.
This engagement has empowering effects on clients by
amplifying their
influence and participation in the process. And collaborative
inquiry
enhances therapeutic relationships. Ryan and Carr (2001)
summarize a
variety of family therapy process research studies suggesting
that when
clients perceive therapists to be collaborating and empathizing
with
them in addressing the difficulties in their lives, they feel a
stronger ther-
apeutic alliance, cooperate more, and engage in less
“resistance.”
THE PLACE OF PROFESSIONAL VALUES AND
KNOWLEDGE
IN COLLABORATIVE INQUIRY
Engaging in the process of collaborative inquiry does not mean
that we,
as therapists, abdicate our own values or knowledge. I am not
advocat-
ing a kind of moral relativism in which we enter into family
cultures
uncritically and simply accept all aspects of how they operate.
It is
important to critically examine both our own and our clients’
beliefs,

practices, and values as well as the effects they have. In this
process,
there is a focus on the particular real effects of actions on
others and on
fostering accountability for those effects. For example, we can
shift from
thinking about substance use as something that is universally
evil or bad
to examining the real effects of the use of particular substances
at a par-
ticular time in a particular situation. It would be important to
examine
the effects of substance use on the person, important others, and
the
relationships between them. Although I might not tell a mother
who is
using substances that she should just stop, I would engage her
in a dis-
cussion about her hopes for herself and her children and how
she prefers
to be as a person and a mother. I would then explore with her
how sub-
stance use supports or constrains those hopes and preferred
ways of
being. I would also engage her in an extended discussion of the
effects of
substance use on her children, with an effort to elicit her

thoughts before
offering my own. A preference for an invitational approach is a
prag-
matic as well as aesthetic decision. Simply telling people to do
something
often does not work, and as we’ve seen in several examples in
this chap-
ter, inviting people to reflect on the consequences of their
actions can
yield powerful results.
At the same time, it is important to keep concerns about the
abuse
and neglect of children at the center of our practice at all times.
If, in this
instance, I had a concern that a mother’s substance use put her
children
at risk, I would not hesitate to raise that concern with her and to
notify
protective services. In this response, I am aware that I may not
be able to
“get her to see” that this is a problem (despite my hopes). I
think of my
job here as not necessarily getting her to see that her actions are
prob-
lematic, but as taking responsibility for my response to her
actions. If I
hear about a child who is at risk, I have a legal obligation and
ethical
responsibility to respond in ways that seek to ensure the child’s
safety.
This is where I do adhere to a normative standard.
The values we hold profoundly influence the ways in which we
interact with families, and it is important that we openly and
respectfully

acknowledge this with them. Rather than pretend that we come
to our
work value free, we can identify our values and be open about
them.
Values and the way in which they inform our actions can be an
impor-
tant topic of discussion in our work with families. Within a
cross-
cultural metaphor, it is important to recognize and honor the
assump-
tions that we bring from our own cultures into the negotiation.
There
are particular values that I hold strongly (e.g., anti-violence,
pro-respect)
that I communicate to families. However, it is important for me
to
acknowledge these as my values. They may or may not fit for
particular
families. If I try to force a fit, my attempts usually backfire. If I
offer par-
ticular ideas or values as a piece of my culture that clients
might find
FAMILIES
helpful, they are more likely to consider such ideas than if I try
to “con-
vert” them. At the same time, I strive to consistently act in
accordance

with my values. For example, in a heterosexual couple in which
a man is
speaking abusively toward a woman, I would raise my concerns
that this
way of speaking could feel abusive and demeaning and ask each
about
their experience of it. I would attempt to focus on the way of
speaking
rather than the speaker as a possible problem and inquire about
effects
of that way of speaking on the woman, on the man, and on their
rela-
tionship. I might examine how those effects fit with the kind of
relation-
ship they would prefer to have. In asking them questions, I’d
want to
keep in mind the power dynamics in the room (e.g., I’d want to
be mind-
ful of the gender politics in the room and be sensitive not to put
the
woman in an overly vulnerable position nor speak on her behalf
in a
way that she might experience as patronizing; I’d also want to
be aware
of my own power position in the interaction and raise these
concerns as
questions rather than declarations, and try to do so in a way that
the
man experiences them as connected rather than judgmental). I
might
also ask them about their reactions to my questions and
concerns. As a
bottom line, I might ask the man to not speak that way while in
my
office, but would own that as my desire and need (e.g., “I find it
too dis-

tressing and distracting when you speak to her in those ways
and I’d like
to ask you to refrain so that I can be more helpful to the two of
you”).
However, it is important to acknowledge that this response
comes from
my values and may or may not fit with their values. The
practice of
transparency (described in the first chapter), through which we
make
visible the values, thoughts, and assumptions that organize our
work,
helps to build relationships in which we can discuss and
negotiate differ-
ent perspectives in ways that do not impose our values on
families and
yet does not ignore them either. Chapter 1 offered a set of
guidelines that
can be useful in organizing difficult conversations across value
differ-
ences (Roth, 1999, 2006a).
Collaborative inquiry also does not entail an abandonment of
pro-
fessional knowledge. Our professional experiences have
exposed us to
multiple ways in which other families have coped with
particular prob-
lems, and there may be some valuable wisdom in those
experiences. For
example, the distinction between intent and effect,
demonstrating that
our actions may have negative effects even though our
intentions are
positive, is one that many couples have found helpful. The
distinction

between “parenting to protect” and “parenting to prepare” is
another
useful idea (Parry & Doan, 1994). In parenting to protect, a
parent’s job
is to protect a child from bad things happening to him or her,
whereas in
parenting to prepare, a parent’s job is to prepare a child for
living in a
difficult world. Often (though not always), there is a
developmental
point at which parenting to prepare may be a more useful model
for
parenting. I have found this distinction very useful and have
offered it to
parents at times. However, my intention in sharing either of
these dis-
tinctions with clients is to offer them ideas that might be useful
rather
than attempt to get clients to embrace the ideas. In a sense, I’m
offering a
piece of my professional cultural knowledge and heritage that
might
enrich their lives.
I want to emphasize that I am not suggesting we avoid offering
useful
thoughts to families. The timing of when we offer ideas to

families is
crucial. My preference is to first elicit client knowledge and
bring forth
ideas that are jointly developed in the session. Following that, I
might offer
additional supplemental knowledge that comes from my own
professional
or personal experiences if it seems appropriate and useful.
However, it is
crucial that we have an invitation for such an offering and that
our ideas
are conveyed in ways that acknowledge the family’s
idiosyncratic assump-
tions and values. Families can experience the offering of our
knowledge as
supporting and enriching their wisdom or as invalidating and
supplanting
it. It is important to offer our ideas in ways that clients
experience as
empowering rather than inadvertently disempowering. One way
to do this
is to make sure that the process by which we offer our
knowledge is
accountable to clients for its effects on them. We can
consistently and
repeatedly check with clients about how the process of therapy
is going for
them and adjust our efforts accordingly.
DEVELOPING A CONTAINING ENVIRONMENT
FOR COLLABORATIVE INQUIRY
Collaborative inquiry requires an interpersonal atmosphere
contained
enough to successfully invite clients into a reflective stance
(i.e., being

willing and able to consider questions and respond to them
thoughtfully
and honestly). For many clinicians working with difficult
families, such
containment may seem more often the exception than the rule.1
Family
members can present as out of control, continually interrupting
each
other, and extremely reactive to each other. It can be useful for
clinicians
to observe the ways in which family members interact as a way
to gain
valuable information, but it is notably less helpful for family
members to
repeatedly experience themselves as out of control. The process
of col-
laborative inquiry both requires and contributes to a safe,
contained
environment.
James and Melissa Elliot Griffith (1992, 1994) have
distinguished
emotional postures of tranquility and mobilization and
examined the
FAMILIES
ways in which each opens or closes possibilities for therapeutic
dialogue.

Postures of tranquility include states of listening, wondering,
reflecting,
affirming, understanding, and trusting. In emotional postures of
tran-
quility, attention is focused inward, vigilance to threat is low,
and
there is openness to new information. Emotional postures of
mobiliza-
tion, however, involve the physiological “fight or flight”
response and
include states of guardedness, hyperarousal, shaming, blaming,
attack-
ing, defending, justifying, controlling, distancing, and ignoring.
Vigi-
lance is high and attention is focused outward in an effort to
predict and
control others’ behavior. When people are primed to fight or
flee, they
are not well positioned to take in information or engage in
creative
problem solving.
Inviting multi-stressed families into an emotional posture of
tran-
quility may strike many clinicians as a kind of oxymoron. These
fami-
lies are often seen as crisis prone, and their suspiciousness and
reactiv-
ity are viewed as a family characteristic rather than an
interactional
process between families and helpers. Many families who have
had
multiple pathologizing encounters with helpers are justifiably
vigilant
as they interact with therapists. A clinician’s role in
collaborative

inquiry requires active leadership. This is not a process of just
listening
to people’s stories. It requires an active presence, setting a tone
of
respectful curiosity and providing a leadership role in how the
conver-
sation unfolds. The process of continually pulling for threads of
com-
petence, connection, and hope requires focus and agility. If our
job is
to open space for people to have a different experience, then our
work
must begin with a belief that families can have different
conversations.
There are a number of distinct ways in which we can structure
thera-
peutic meetings that contribute to a containing environment. I
have
often conceptualized our role as “conversational architects,” in
which
we collaborate with families to design conversational structures
that
will hold a different conversation and yield a preferred
experience of
self and others. I want to highlight three particular ways in
which
we can develop conversational structures that support
collaborative
inquiry. These include efforts to help clients become more
deliberate in
their responses, the use of communication agreements, and the
devel-
opment of conversational structures.2 I discuss work with a
couple to
highlight each of these.

Tom and Beth were a working-class Jewish couple with a long
his-
tory of screaming matches in which they would talk past each
other, cut
each other off, and continually go off on attacking tangents.
These fights
traumatized their 11-year-old son, who increasingly refused to
come out
of his room at home. Their first two therapy meetings were
character-
ized by the same interactions, and I found myself feeling dizzy,
frus-
trated, and lost. Before the third session, I held individual
meetings with
each member of the couple to gather information that would
help me
design and propose a structure to hold a different type of
conversation.
In the individual meetings, I made a point of building a
connection
with each member, examined the toll the fights had taken on
their rela-
tionship, and elicited their hopes for a better relationship. I
proposed a
context shift in our work together, suggesting several sessions
in which

they would each agree to momentarily step away from attempts
to win
the argument in order to preserve their relationship from the
costs of
waging those arguments. In this shift, there is a movement from
a “reso-
lution conversation” aimed at solving the arguments or fixing
the prob-
lem, to a “learning conversation” aimed at developing a better
under-
standing of the other’s experience of the fights, with the
objective of
preserving their relationship and building a foundation for
subsequent
resolution conversations. In many ways, this is similar to the
context
shift previously discussed in Wright’s (1990) research
intervention. Each
member of the couple agreed to several meetings for this
purpose and
agreed to the structures and processes that were developed in
collabora-
tion with them, as described in the following paragraphs.
Moving to Planful Responsiveness
In the individual meetings, I asked both Tom and Beth to think
about
what they hoped to accomplish in learning more about the
other’s per-
spective and why that would be important to each of them. At
the
beginning of the joint meeting, I reminded them of that request
and
asked them each to pause for a minute and silently think about
the

purpose that brought them to this meeting. I then asked each to
imag-
ine that they were now at the end of the meeting and that
purpose had
been fully realized. I posed some questions for silent reflection
to
ground them in that experience and then asked each of them to
think
about how they wanted to relate to the other in this meeting
(e.g.,
“What tendencies, ways of relating, or ways of being would you
each
like to bring forward and hold back in order to support the
purpose
that brings you here?”). They thought about this for a bit and
then
were asked to say a word or phrase that would capture how they
each
wanted to be in the meeting. Tom replied, “Standing in her
shoes,”
and Beth responded, “Open and curious.” I asked each of them
why
these ways of being would be important to them and what would
help
them to keep to such ways of relating in the meeting. This
invitation
to focus on how they each wanted to be in the meeting, rather
than
how they wanted the other to be in the meeting, helped them
move
from reactivity and attempts to change the other to reflection
and
FAMILIES

planned responsiveness. Asking them to pause and reflect for a
full
minute before responding to my questions also slowed the pace
of the
meeting and encouraged a more reflective space.
Communication Agreements
Communication agreements, in which participants develop a set
of
ground rules, agreements, expectations, or shared promises to
guide
their speaking and listening in a session, can be extremely
useful
(Chasin, Roth, & Bograd, 1989; Roth & Chasin, 1994). In my
individ-
ual conversations with Tom and Beth, I asked a number of
questions to
learn how the upcoming meeting might go well or poorly for
them. We
discussed a number of possible communication agreements that
could
support a more constructive conversation, and I proposed a
number of
communication agreements that could help them have a
constructive
“learning conversation.” These were framed as agreements or
shared
promises that the couple were making to each other to support
the kind

of conversation they wanted to have and promote the kind of
relation-
ship they wanted to develop. I proposed several agreements, and
we then
together worked out a final list. The agreements, framed as
shared
promises in the service of their relationship, included:
“We promise to share speaking time and respond to any time
limits
set.”
“We promise to suspend efforts to persuade in order to seek
mutual
understanding.”
“We promise to speak from our own experience and not
attribute
intentions or motives to the other.”
“We promise to listen carefully when what is said is hard to
hear
and hang in and not interrupt the other.”
“We respect each other’s right to pass in response to any
questions
asked.”
“We authorize Bill to help hold us to these agreements.”
This last agreement is an important one. It is important that a
therapist
have clients’ authorization to help hold them to communication
agree-
ments. Having the agreements in place ahead of time and an
authoriza-

tion to help people hold to them allows the creation of a
structure that
will contain the meeting, rather than relying solely on a
therapist’s facili-
tation skills to contain the meeting. Having that authorization
allows the
clinician to remind people of the promises they’ve made in
support of
their purpose rather than trying to impose the clinician’s rules
and get
them to comply in a heated moment.
Conversational Structures
The final element needed for developing a containing
environment for a
learning conversation is the use of conversational structures that
sepa-
rate out and clearly demarcate time and space for speaking and
listening.
The purpose of these structures is to support a learning
conversation
that will serve the purposes that bring each member to the
meeting. This
is not an attempt to provide a normative model of functioning
for their
lives, but to offer them a structure that will support the kind of
learning

RESEARCH PAPER GUIDELINES ENGLISH G110 Length 2000 word.docx

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