Integrated Behavioral Couples Therapy

Traditional Behavioral Couples Therapy (TBCT) is based on a few basic ideas: Simply talking about how you feel and think about problems is not very helpful; rather, doing something about them is what helps. TBCT focuses on changing behavior through communication and problem-solving; you negotiate changes and agree to implement them. Studies have shown that […]

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Infidelity

Marriage is the only war where you sleep with the enemy. Gary Busey What Do We Know About Infidelity? Some stats on infidelity: In the clinical population, 25-30% of couples come to therapy in the aftermath of an affair, and an additional 30% report during therapy that there has been an affair, so roughly 1 […]

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The History of Marital Therapy

from The history of couple therapy: A millennial review. Family Process, 41, 199-260. (2002). Gurman and Fraenkel point out that relational therapy (formerly marital or couples therapy) has been largely neglected as its own specialty, even though family therapists do almost twice as much work with couples as work with multigenerational families. Sometimes it is […]

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The Sound Marital House

John Gottman has been conducting marital therapy research for almost 30 years, and is a well-respected leader in the field. Based on this research and clinical testing of the theory, he and his wife Julie Schwartz-Gottman have developed a solid understanding of why some relationships last and why some do not, as well as an […]

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Gender Issues in Couples Therapy

Introduction “Gender Issues” has been a difficult area for couples therapy. In 1988 the AAMFT required that accredited programs had to include gender issues in their curriculum. “Feminism” is initially what this meant, as women argued that traditional couples therapy maintained the sexist status quo, both by blaming women for violence and by maintaining therapeutic […]

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Issues for Same-Sex Couples

Gay and lesbian couples make up 1 million of the 11 million couples living together in the 2000 census. Studies indicate 40-60% of gay men and 45-80% of lesbians are coupled at any given time, and the Census data doesn’t count the couples not living together, so the number of gay and lesbian couples is […]

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Research in Family Therapy

I think of family therapy models as being on a continuum from “theory based” to “research based.” Of course, most models fall somewhere in between, rather than at the extremes, but the distinction is not that different than that seen in individual therapy, with psychodynamic falling more toward the theory based end, and cognitive behavioral […]

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Emotion Focused Therapy for Couples

Review of Susan Johnson and Leslie Greenberg’s Approach to Couples Therapy Notes from my Couples Therapy Class To hear you say my name, to see you search my eyes… To feel you touch my hand, it more than satisfies. If I was not the first, just say I’ll be the last. It’s too much to […]

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What’s the Difference Between Couples and Individual Therapy?

Basic Differences Between Couples and Individual Therapy Some look at couple and family therapy as primarily problem-focused (or tertiary prevention), while others see it as prevention-focused (primary or secondary prevention). Thus, working with parents to help them work collaboratively to gain control of teen acting-out behavior is a problem-focused intervention for that couple. However, it […]

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The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier, and Better off Financially

The Case for MarriageWhy Married People Are Happier, Healthier, and Better off Financially by Linda J. Waite and Maggie GallagherReview by Richard Niolon This is an excellent source of information for the married couple on the benefits of marriage, and why it is not the same as “living together.” they provide a wealth of statistics, […]

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