Clinical Outcomes Research and Rogerian Science: Strange Or Emergent Bedfellows?(Clinical Report‪)‬

ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to describe and reconcile conceptual inconsistencies between clinical outcomes research and the ontological assumptions of the SUHB. Specifically, the authors address a clinical trial examining outcomes of touch therapies framed within Rogerian science. They raise the question of whether the clinical trial is inherently incompatible with the SUHB, or if through reconceptualization, it can be an emergent way of interpreting and developing research methods within the conceptual system. The paper contains an overview of the study, the ontological and epistemological assumptions that underpin experimental design, conflicts between these assumptions and the assumptions of SUHB, perspectives within the literature on issues of ontological-methodological congruency within Rogerian Science, and paths to reconciliation of the conflicts presented. The discussion of reconciliation calls attention to the nature of scientific inquiry, developing knowledge within the Rogerian research tradition, Bohm's holographic theory, body-field relationships, linking theory to outcomes in the SUHB, complexity science, and reconceptualing through metaphor.