(The Australian Psychological Society Limited, 2007) Busch, Robbie
A recent shift in American Psychological Association policy for what constitutes as
evidence in psychotherapy has resulted in the inclusion of qualitative methodologies.
Narrative therapy is a discursive therapy that is theoretically incongruent with the
prevailing gold standard of experimental methodology in psychotherapy outcome
evaluation. By using a discursive evaluation methodology that is congruent with
narrative therapy this study of six peer-reviewed narrative therapy case articles found
shifts in client positioning in the transformation from medical pathology discourses to
strength-based discourses. It is concluded that five out of six case studies coherently
demonstrated the effectiveness of narrative therapy with positive outcomes for clients
and that a discursive evaluation has utility in producing a thick description of
therapeutic outcome.
