CLINICAL INNOVATION AND EVALUATION - INTEGRATING PRACTICE WITH INQUIRY

We explore the complex interplay of clinical discovery and controlled evaluation, demonstrating how experience in the applied arena provides invaluable insights and ideas about the complexity of the human condi tion and of ways to intervene effectively. Case studies have features that earn them a firm place in psychological research, and to ignore t heir potential contributions is to limit severely the kind of knowledg e that can be generated by more systematic modes of inquiry. Some limi tations of group designs in comparative therapy research are also revi ewed, again highlighting the importance of idiographic analyses of sin gle cases. Innovation and creative advancement are most readily nurtur ed via immersion in clinical/applied work, but at the same time the na ture of that work is inevitably shaped by theories and hypotheses that clinicians bring into the applied setting. These abstractions are the mselves influenced by the clinician's interpretations of data, which i nterpretations are molded by theoretical and metatheoretical preconcep tions. In this complex and interactive fashion, clinical innovation is part of a non-linear network of forces that includes personal biases, professional allegiances, epistemological assumptions, theoretical pr eferences, and familiarity with and use of certain bodies of data.