[Ailist] Re: Applying leeches?

[Lynn D. Johnson]

Alice makes an excellent point. Over twenty years ago I became 
interested in quality improvement in psychotherapy. A CQI expert (with a 
Ph.D. in psychology) told me it couldn't be done because there was no 
way to measure outcomes. I thought there was.

I wrote a book about this, suggesting that therapists track (1) 
alliance, and (2) clinical functioning at every session. In the book, I 
included my own alliance measure and suggested several outcome measures 
that can be used at each session. Today thousands use the OQ-45 or 
similar for functioning since the last session, and my Session Rating 
scale or similar for alliance. We now know that measurement improves 
outcome in therapy by at least 30%.

I hope the organizational consultants on this listserv will develop 
practical, reliable, and valid measures to track the things they do.

Lynn Johnson
Salt Lake City

Alice Leibowitz wrote:
> I see a lot of people on this list and also on the Future Search list who
> are opposed to evaluating the measurable results of our organizational
> interventions, on the ground that such data doesn't convince skeptics to
> hire us.
>
> It may be true that this data doesn't convince skeptics, but that's not the
> most important reason for gathering the data. The most important reason is
> for our own integrity.
>
> If the work we do makes people feel unified and creative for a week, but
> does not result in some form of increased success in the long run, we have
> failed. I don't feel ethical asking people to pay me to do something that
> may not work.
>
> I know from my past work in teen pregnancy prevention that interventions
> designed to change human behavior rarely make a difference. Many
> interventions which are backed by strong theory and compelling values turn
> out to have no result. I believe that changing group behavior is even more
> difficult than changing that of individuals.
>
> For ourselves, as well as for the benefit of our clients, we should support
> meaningful evaluation research on Appreciative Inquiry (and Future Search)
> methods, so we can know what difference we are making.
>
>