Wk. Silverman et Wm. Kurtines, THEORY IN CHILD PSYCHOSOCIAL TREATMENT RESEARCH - HAVE IT OR HAD IT -A PRAGMATIC ALTERNATIVE, Journal of abnormal child psychology, 25(5), 1997, pp. 359-366
In the area of child psychosocial intervention research, substantial p
rogress in addressing challenging methodological issues. has been made
. In this article we suggest that continued movement forward requires
maintaining a balance between methodological and theoretical issues, a
nd that it would be advantageous to begin to think about matching adva
nces in methodological sophistication by similar advances in theoretic
al sophistication. The need to advance our understanding of theoretica
l issues is especially important in light of the challenges raised by
postmodernism, particularly as these challenges relate to knowledge de
velopment. We discuss these challenges and describe how a ''pragmatic'
' orientation may be a useful way to respond to them. We also describe
how a pragmatic orientation has been useful in our work in developing
, implementing and evaluating psychosocial interventions for children
with phobic and anxiety disorders.