La ricerca di processo nel decennio 1998 -2007: Contributo a una review critica

Abstract

This preliminary survey wants to be a first contribution to a critical review on psychotherapy process research. The aim is to describe: how can process research be divided? According to what dimension? In how many ways? The goals of this research are to trace the implicit and basic dimensions that can organize the heterogeneity of this sector in a consistent way. According to our goal we used a grid built up through several variables by means of which we segmented the studies on process research (both process and process-outcome studies) extracted from 13 scientific journals over the last ten years (1998-2007). The goals were: a) Quantifying and classifying the scientific production of the last ten years b) exploring the main models that articulate and organize the field. We found two main epistemological models in the process research: the model of analysis and the interpretative model. These two models give rise to three different approaches: Conjectural approach, Sperimental and Mixed Approach, both rising questions about the construct of significance, the choice of the objects of analysis and the relation between the object of the research and the methodology adopted.