367 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
M. Ochs et al. (eds.), Systemic Research in Individual, Couple, and Family
Therapy and Counseling, European Family Therapy Association Series,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36560-8_20
The SCORE in Europe: Measuring
Effectiveness, Assisting Therapy
Peter Stratton, Alan Carr, and Luigi Schepisi
Introduction
There are powerful demands on us to adapt our practices according to what
evidence shows to be effective, and so we should. Unfortunately the research
method that has become dominant, the randomised control trial (RCT), is clearly
not generally appropriate for systemic family therapy. RCTs require an unequivo-
cally diagnosed condition and two standardised treatments with patients allocated
randomly to one or the other (think blue versus red pills). In the real world, systemic
couple and family therapy (SCFT) clinics, like some other therapies, see a great
variety of clients, many of whom do not have a DSM-type diagnosis; we discover
the problems during treatment not at referral; and we treat people in their relation-
ships, not diagnoses.
Even so, many researchers have managed to accumulate convincing evidence
primarily using the RCT paradigm. In 2005 AFT sponsored the frst report which
collated the published evidence base of systemic family therapy. Since that time,
especially while I (PS) was funded as the AFT “Academic and Research Development
Offcer”, we have undertaken various initiatives to make the evidence base available
while exploring the reasons for its limitations. The third version of the report
P. Stratton (*)
Leeds Institute of Health Sciences (LIHS), University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
A. Carr
School of Psychology, University College Dublin, and Clanwilliam Institute Dublin,
Dublin, Ireland
L. Schepisi
Centro di Studi e di Applicazione della Psicologia Relazionale, Prato, Italy