The theoretical basis of a functional-descriptive approach to qualitative research in CBS: With a focus on narrative analysis and practice

Abstract

This conceptual-methodological article examines how qualitative research, particularly the recent developments in narrative analysis, can be used in a manner consistent with Contextual Behavioral Science. Qualitative research is ordinarily a form of “descriptive contextualism” that can be used for understanding the narratives of the client, the therapy process, and its results. Narrative analysis contributes to the idiographic understanding of a particular experience by carefully examining narrative elements like plot, motives, and characters. The use of such analysis is now supported by attempts to use behaviorism and Relational Frame Theory to understand narratives. However, in response to the criticism that qualitative research is merely descriptive rather than functional, new developments in narrative analysis that go beyond description of stories toward the scope, effects, and boundaries of stories are examined. This makes possible a narrative analysis that is functional-descriptive, where understanding and prediction-and-influence are combined.