how is it then possible to use scientific method to investigate into something that has no objective reality?

To read this article in context, you may want to see this site: http://interactionjournal.wordpress.com/2009/05/27/gale-miller-the-man-behind-the-mirror-behind-the-mirror-at-bftc-interview-by-mark-mckergow/#comment-2



Hi Michael and Mark,

I am loving this discussion, it makes me think.

‘Vigorous scientific investigation’ requires an object or form first of all to investigate into, and that the investigated object is believed to be obtainable which makes it positivistically existing. The very believe that motivates vigorous scientific investigation.

Traditional therapeutic models that are underpinned by related psychological perspectives, would assume the positivistic nature of problem, that is, an independently existing reality to which people can get access. This further suggests the traceability and the pre-existence of problems that they are there waiting to be discovered. So in this case, the role of scientific investigation is appropriate.

In contrast to that, SFBT adopts the constructionist stance in viewing problem created and emerging from the process of social interaction, that is, problem can only be understood and seen as problem within a specific pattern of meaning and interaction. So, if ‘problem’ do not carry an objective meaning, it then seems quite futile to pursue the cause of it, nor attempting to investigate into it. Instead, SFBT seems to utilise the very nature of discursiveness as the fundamental framework by which the conversations between therapists and clients are constructed in a way that will bring ‘cure’ to the clients.

The contrast we see is formed in relation to what it is not, the constructionist perspective that underpins SFBT supposes a reality (problem) that is manufactured by people through interaction, whilst the structuralist based approaches suppose an independently existing reality to which people can get access.

By this note, how is it then possible to use scientific method to investigate into something that has no objective reality?

Eva