Intervention, evidensbaseret forskning og hverdagsliv

Abstract

Intervention is a key concept in the technol- ogy of psychology and it plays a decisive role in evidence-based research. But analyses of this concept are remarkably sparse. This pa- per, first, presents a critical analysis of the conception of intervention in the report of the American Psychological Association on evi- dence-based research and practice which plays a key role in the dissemination of evidence- based research. This analysis also highlights that the outlook of evidence-based research on the expertise and conduct of practice of psychological practitioners and on the practice of clients is inadequate. While psychological interventions are primarily meant to work in people’s everyday lives, how interventions do so is barely addressed and poorly captured. Ev- idence-based research, as currently conceived, is even an obstacle to overcoming this short- coming. Studies of psychologists’ practices of intervening in relation to people’s ongoing everyday lives are needed in order to improve our empirical basis for reconceptualizing in- tervention. On the background of studies of how psychotherapeutic practices intervene in the everyday lives of clients, I show how in- terventions work in clients’ everyday lives and point out consequences for reconceptualizing psychological intervention.