Demystifying and demythologising outcome/change measurement

Chris Evans and Jo-Anne Carlyle

Professional role: Researcher and visiting professor
Institution/affiliation: PSYCTC.org and UDLA, Quito, Ecuador
Email: chris@psyctc.org

Structure and overview of content: Change measurement can be enormously supportive to counselling and psychotherapies by providing information about what is helpful to clients and what distinguishes different needs and outcomes. However, it has a dangerous potential to exclude clients, therapists and block the availability of some therapies from services. It stirs up strong feelings and has undoubtedly been much misused, idealised and divorced from some of the key concerns of therapists and clients. This workshop will explore the utility of many methods of change measurement from key questions:

  • What are the different ways of being able to be confident in what we know?
  • How can we understand change?
  • How can we make change measurement more inclusive of diverse groups of clients, therapists and therapies?

We will start with the term “outcome measurement” (OM) itself, locating this in the belief that therapy can have lifelong, life changing impact, generally helpful though occasionally harmful. We acknowledge that the real outcomes of therapies are unmeasurable, that the approaches we use to measurement are inevitably proxy measures, but we argue that these measures are valuable if the mystification that overvalues them is stripped away.

Following a brief presentation, the workshop will be interactive deconstructing myths about change measurement; using specific questions from participants and exploring how change measurement can be more sensitive to the needs of diverse groups.

Target audience: All practitioners, researchers and managers, particularly:

  • practitioners interested in digesting research more meaningfully
  • practitioners and researchers interested in linking up to create Practice Research Networks to increase the availability and utility of practice based evidence.

Consideration given to issues of equality, diversity and inclusion: Much research artificially creates homogeneity to have sufficient numbers for statistical “power”. This can work against the interests of clinicians and exclude client groups. We will explore some of these issues and show how different models are needed to embrace diversity and create what we call: “webs of evidence” as opposed to controlling hierarchies of evidence.

Empowering people: The co-creation of a research strategy that effectively captures and explores the experience of counselling for people who have a learning disability

Sally Lumsdaine and Charlotte Scott

Professional role: Lecturer
Institution/affiliation: Abertay University
Email: s.lumsdaine@abertay.ac.uk

Structure and overview of content: People with a learning/intellectual disability have been termed as Scotland’s Invisible People (Fraser of Allander Institute, 2020) as they face major barriers and discrimination which stops them participating on an equal basis and accessing the help and support that those within wider society take for granted, such as counselling.

Enable Scotland (www.enable.org.uk) and Abertay University have established a partnership to help research this area with a view to developing practice guidelines for working with individuals who identify as having a learning disability, creating and delivering training for counsellors on providing a counselling experience which is accessible to individuals who identify as having a learning disability, and researching the therapy process, methods and relationship with the aim of informing training and future work with this client group.

This workshop will focus on the collaborative nature of the research process and will encourage discussion around the creation of approaches that are inclusive and accessible by forming partnerships and by embedding the preferences, voices and choices of people with lived experience (such as those who identify as having a learning disability) into the research from the start. It will also explore the importance of inclusive and accessible data collection and reporting methods as a way of empowering people with a range of communication abilities to engage with evidence-based information in a way that is meaningful to them.

The workshop will be delivered by individuals who have been part of the development group (including Enable members) who will share their experiences of the process to support delegates to further understand the impact of collaboration within research.

Target audience: This workshop is aimed at anyone who is interested in working collaboratively at the research design stage with people who have lived experiences related to their area of study.

Considerations given to issues of equality, diversity and inclusion: The workshop will focus on the inclusion of individuals who have a learning disability in the design of a research project. 

Hermeneutic Phenomenology: Applying a classic method to contemporary counseling research

Dr Jake Wheatley PhD, LPC, NCC, CCLS

Professional role: Assistant Professor
Institution/affiliation: California University of Pennsylvania
Email: wheatley@calu.edu

Structure and overview of content

Background: There is a guiding principle in phenomenology that conscious thoughts (including biases) are a formation of historically lived experience. Interpretation is the critical process in hermeneutics whereas phenomenology alone is interested in the conveying and representation of experience. Hermeneutics studies the cultural activity of humans within a textual context with the view of interpretation to find intended or expressed meaning. These texts include written and verbal communications.

A hermeneutic phenomenological (HP) approach integrates the descriptive nature of phenomenology and the interpretive focus of hermeneutics in the attempt to interpret a phenomenon. HP aims to go beyond the experience itself to find the objective nature of what an individual describes through the use of language and interaction.

HP examines the lived experience of individuals with a focus on uncovering details of the aspects that might seem trivial within that experience, such as how the words one uses in interpretation may have a more complex representation. The goal of HP research is to create meaning and achieve understanding of how that meaning is situated within the experience of the individual.

Structure:

  • Introduction to the methodology, defining hermeneutic phenomenology, exploring examples in current research
  • Establishing data collection methods
  • Discuss utilization within counseling research, specifically within cultural competence (pulling from presenter's personal research experience)
  • Data analysis with the hermeneutic circle
  • Hands-on practice for attendees
  • Questions

Target audience: This workshop is suitable for novice to experienced researchers. Prior knowledge of qualitative research methods is helpful.

Considerations given to issues of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI): Hermeneutic phenomenology as a research methodology provides direct considerations to EDI as it is a multiculturally competent method of analysis. Analyzing through the hermeneutic circle, researchers are approaching data in a culturally open and competent manner. This method allows researchers to incorporate diverse cultural concepts of participants directly into the data analysis. This is a response to the call for more culturally inclusive research methods in counseling. 

Using creative interviewing when researching your own clients

Richard Knight and Ruth Knight

Professional role: Counsellor and PhD Researcher
Institution/affiliation: Counselling and Mental Health Clinic, York St. John University
Email: r.knight@yorksj.ac.uk

Structure and overview of content: This workshop will explore the ethical complexities of interviewing one’s own clients, and how using creative interviewing in semi-structured interviews can make interviews more accessible to wider range of clients. We will begin with a short consideration of the practicalities of conducting this research, including a dual-role reflexive model. We will outline the relevant literature, and the arguments for and against researching one’s own clients, especially when interviewing these clients directly. We will discuss how these issues might show up in our own work and what steps we can take as practitioner-researchers to mitigate any risks.

We will reflect upon the kind of communities that we are neglecting to consider and encourage to take part in research. Literature suggests that researchers rarely collect demographic data within our field, hence participants are presumed to be White, heterosexual, able-bodied, middle class, and cisgender (Watkins, 2012). Together we will reflect on how we can make counselling research more accessible to a wider range of participants, and what the ramifications of this might be on the conclusions that we draw. Finally we will look specifically at how using creative semi-structured interviews can make research accessible to more communities. We will consider what creative interviewing is and explore examples from the presenter’s projects. You will be encouraged to create your own creative questions that might resonate with communities not currently considered in your projects.

Target audience: This workshop is accessible to researchers with any level experience, from students to experts. It will be helpful to anyone who is interested in promoting accessibility within counselling research.

EDI considerations: The workshop presenters are both disabled researchers with intersecting identities, and present the content of the workshop from these perspectives. Counselling has long been criticised for being inaccessible to many minority communities, and counselling research is no different. It is vital that we make our research practices more accessible to a wider range of participant, something that this workshop will help practitioners to do.