Kızılkaya / Fıkıh Usulünde Sahabe Fetvasının Kaynaklık Değeri Cilt / Volume: • Sayı /Issue: • 2012

113
Karagöz / Theory or Reality: Positioning and Searching in the Face of Dominant Theory and Practices of Therapy
Interviewing, as one of the qualitative techniques, is used in this research. An in-
depth interviewing technique “allows open ended questions to be asked, listened, 
their answers recorded and the research topic to be examined in detail with related 
additional questions” (Kümbetoğlu, 2008, p. 71). In this respect, as Kümbetoğlu states 
(2008), an in-depth interviewing technique allows for transcending the visible side of 
social phenomena and reaching the essence of it, examining them in a deeper, more 
detailed and integrated fashion.
Interviews were made with 10 psychotherapy experts, in particular those who work 
with families, children or adolescents, practicing in Istanbul. Three of these experts 
work as psychiatrists, four as psychologists, and four as counselors. The interviewees 
were chosen through the use of “snowball sampling,” which is often used in qualita-
tive research. By this way, other interviewees were reached via source persons. In 
the snowball sampling, there is a risk in reaching only specific groups and persons 
(Kümbetoğlu, 2008, p. 99). It was attempted to avoid this risk by determining two 
source persons. In addition to snowball sampling, considering that excessive or con-
tradictory situations can provide a richer data as compared to normal situations and 
thus the research problem would be understood in depth and in multi-layered fashion 
(Yıldırım & Şimşek, 2000) excessive or contradictory situation sampling was also used.             
Interviews were conducted by making appointments beforehand and going to the 
institutions at the specified date and time. Interviews were recorded and these record-
ings were transcribed. These texts were read several times and analyzed with “sys-
tematic analysis,” one of the qualitative data analysis methods. In systematic analysis, 
“in addition to the descriptive presentation of data in order to reach some causal 
and explanatory conclusions, after determining some of the concepts and themes 
in the data, it is essential to identify the relationship between them” (Kümbetoğlu, 
2008, p. 154). Using the data gathered in this research, specific common themes were 
composed and the participants’ answers were classified under these themes. Data 
gathered by a total of 13 electronic questionnaires were also classified under specific 
categories. Afterwards, both the data gathered from interviews and electronic ques-
tionnaires were analyzed in an integrated manner. 
Therapy experts who participated in the research were mostly observed to take a criti-
cal stand, both in theoretical and practical sense, against the current state of science 
of psychology and therapy services in Turkey. The foregrounding themes in these 
evaluations were personal and institutional quality and proficiency problems, the 
field being vulnerable to misuse due to the non-existence of a legal regulation and 
the absence of culture oriented therapy approaches in the field. Contrary to these 
critical thoughts on the current state of the field, it has been seen that the majority 
of participants preferred the dominant theories and methods in both theoretical and 
institutional sense while giving therapy service. It has also been observed that, in order 

---

114
Human and Society
to “solve the problems of the client in a shorter period,” mostly an eclectic understand-
ing of methods has been preferred. While this understanding seems to be functional 
in solving problems in a short period and in the easiest way, from a wider perspective 
it can be said that this method includes a number of problems. As Ratner (2011) points 
out, eclecticism represses debates about existing approaches and criticism against 
them. Moreover, Ratner (2003, p. 68) states that eclecticism denies therapists from 
principles and tendencies necessary to understand the cultural aspects of psychology 
thus preventing the emergence of systematic approaches about culture. Therefore, it 
is apparent that while this method, which some of the participants use to alleviate the 
deficiencies of available theories and therapy techniques, seems to be producing solu-
tions in a short period, it cannot produce more systematic and longer term solution, 
both theoretically and practically.
Two therapy experts who participated in the research were seen to be adopting a 
transpersonal psychology and a hermeneutic therapy approach, which are outside 
the dominant therapy approaches and considered as alternatives. Contrary to the 
modern therapy approaches’ emphasis on individualism, in hermeneutic therapy cul-
tural and historical belonging is emphasized and the responsibility to take emotional 
problems and struggles in a wider social and moral context are imposed on the psy-
chotherapist (Sayar, 2011). These accounts on the disposition of hermeneutic therapy 
and the therapist correspond to Fişek’s (1996) emphasis on the necessity of sensitivity 
on context. According to Fişek (1996), “whatever the therapist’s school might be, as 
long as s/he is sensitive to the context the client is in, to the influences of that context, 
and to how conditioned s/he is by his own context, s/he can make more efficient 
attempts.” These evaluations correspond to the participants’ identifications pertaining 
to what must be done to remove deficiencies in therapy approaches. The majority of 
the participants stated that whatever the therapist’s school might be, the important 
thing is not to drift away from his/her own culture’s values and traditions; and in this 
context, s/he should construct a positive, trusting relationship with his client. In these 
evaluations, therapists’ focus on context is emphasized. However, as Arkonaç (1999) 
notes, this time the modernist context of human model which stems from therapy 
models is ignored. In other words, regarding a therapist’s mere sensitivity to context 
as being sufficient in and of itself is equivalent to ignoring the conception of entity 
and human, an understanding of knowledge which arises from the current therapy 
models being used. This point of view also prevents the perspective regarding issues 
related to therapy theories from a different paradigm/world of meaning/understand-
ing of knowledge. Thus what happens here is that these academicians and therapists 
who are sensitive to culture merely on an individual level, carry over the Western 
understanding of knowledge both theoretically and practically. This situation is an 
indication of the theory and thought importation which Tuna (2011) explains as an 
addiction to Western knowledge. 

---