Revisiting an Article About Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy: The Life Cycle of a Woozle
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INVITED PAPER
Revisiting an Article About Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy: The Life Cycle of a Woozle Jean Mercer1
Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015
Abstract This paper examines a 2006 Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal article (Becker-Weidman in Child Adolesc Soc Work J 23:147–171, 2006a) that purported to show the effectiveness of Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP). It is suggested that this claim, based only on weak evidence, has been the foundation of a ‘‘woozle’’ (Nielsen in Psychol Public Policy Law 20:164–180, 2014), a belief system that persists simply because the original statements have been repeated so often. A history of repetition and republication is traced, and current statements by the UK National Health Service and other sources are presented as evidence that acceptance of DDP began with repetition of the 2006 claims. Suggestions are made for editors and reviewers, who are in a position to prevent the creation of new woozles by carefully examining the claims made in submissions to their journals. Keywords Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy National Health Service Outcome research ‘‘Woozles’’
Introduction The useful term ‘‘woozle’’ was coined by Gelles (1980) and has been revived and elaborated by Nielsen (2014). A ‘‘woozle’’ is a belief based largely or entirely on the fact that the idea has been stated repeatedly in the past (just as in A.A. Milne’s children’s stories, the characters Winnie & Jean Mercer [email protected] 1
Stockton University, 134 E. Main St., Moorestown, NJ 08057, USA
the Pooh and Piglet became convinced that fierce animals called woozles existed, simply because Pooh and Piglet saw multiple tracks in the snow that they had made themselves as they walked around and around a copse; they jumped from the ‘‘evidence’’ offered by the tracks to the belief that other animals—who must be fierce—had walked there). Woozles in the mental health world may involve problems that clients might have (e.g., attachment disorders causing violent behavior) or evidence bases for interventions. In either of these cases, clients and practitioners may feel sure that a type of problem exists, or that there is good evidence for the effectiveness of a treatment, for no other reason than that there have been repeated references to the problem or the treatment’s evidentiary support. Like Lewis Carroll’s Bellman in The Hunting of the Snark, people are inclined to believe that ‘‘what I tell you three times is true’’ (Gardner 2006). The creation of mental health practice woozles regrettably perpetuates mistaken beliefs that can interfere with appropriate treatment. The present paper will argue that evidence for a particular intervention has become a woozle, and will examine the development of this woozle from its initial statement in this journal a decade ago, to its current position with the United Kingdom’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE; www.nice.org.uk). The original article (Becker-Weidman 2006a) stated that Dyadic Developmental Psych
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