Understanding Pamina's recovery: An application of the hermeneutic single-case efficacy design

Abstract

This article reports an effectiveness case study of the individual systemic therapy of a 22-year-old Portuguese woman with a diagnosis of paranoid personality disorder, conducted in a university-based clinic in Lisbon, Portugal. Data were analysed using the hermeneutic single-case efficacy design, a non-experimental interpretive approach that aims to determine whether change occurred, whether change was due to therapeutic strategies, and what in therapy caused the change. Results indicate that the treatment was effective and that de-pathologising Pamina's condition and genogram-based exploration techniques played a crucial role in her recovery.

Keywords:

• Hermeneutics
• individual systemic therapy
• qualitative change process research
• naturalistic research
• single case design