Chapter 8 - Couple and Marriage Therapy and Enrichment

Question 1

Couples therapy

Answer 1

a therapist working with 2 individuals to improve their relationship as a dyad.

a couple may be married or unmarried, gay or straight, White or of color, and have various levels of commitment to each other.

Question 2

Marriage therapy

Answer 2

process in which a therapist works with a couple that is legally married to help them improve their relationship.

may be more complicated than couples counseling because of the legal aspects involved in it.

Question 3

premarital counseling

Answer 3

involves working with a couple to enhance their relationship before they get married.

increasingly popular because it is preventative and lowers divorce probability/relationship conflict while increasing relationship quality

Question 4

premarital assessment questionnaire (PAQ)

Answer 4

Examples: PREPARE, FOCUS, and RELATE

Although all of these inventories have their strengths and weaknesses

Gladding, Samuel T.. Family Therapy (p. 183). Pearson Education. Kindle Edition.

Question 5

3 ways of achieving marital success are:

Answer 5

1. Universal: focuses on preventing the development of problems in the general population.

Example, a media campaign promoting family togetherness with slogans such as, “The Family That Plays Together Stays Together.”

2. Selective prevention: focuses on making interventions with at-risk groups in order to prevent problems.

Example: parenting classes for parents whose children are having difficulties in school

3. Indicated prevention: focuses on minimizing the harmful impact of serious problems in the early stages of a couple’s development.

Question 6

Major Theorists in Marriage Preparation and Couple Enrichment:

Answer 6

David and Vera Mace :
* searched for ways to prevent marital difficulties and counter the growing divorce rate.
* Believed that by working with couples who were not in crisis, they could strengthen marriages and they believed that couples wanted to have better marriages and learn skills for living in harmony;
Founded Association for Couples in Marriage Enrichment (ACME).

John Gottman:

• he videotaped married couples as they go about a typical day at home and monitored physiological signs such as heart rate and blood pressure as they discuss areas of conflict.
• came up with formulas describing which couples will succeed in their relationship and which will divorce. Successful marriage have a ratio of positive to negative interactions of 5 to 1.
• approach for working with couples therapeutically is known as Sound Relationship House (SRH) Theory.

Question 7

4 topics in premarital counseling programs (CCFP)

Answer 7

Communication skills,

Conflict resolution skills,

Finances,

Parenting

Question 8

Klapow 5-step collective decision-making process (SMART)

Answer 8

Set, Monitor, Arrange, Recruit, and Treat.

The five steps are:
1. SET a specific GOAL

2. MONITOR your DISCUSSION
3. ARRANGE the situation for SUCCESS
4. RECRUIT SUPPORT from one another
5. TREAT yourselves—celebrate successes in a concrete way

Question 9

bibliotherapy

Answer 9

gleaning information by reading books or listening to lectures to learn more about relationship traps and how to avoid them

Question 10

The ACME process (5 stages)

Answer 10

(1) building security and community,
(2) developing an awareness of the couple’s relationship,
(3) developing knowledge and skills to help improve the relationship,
(4) planning for growth
(5) celebrating and achieving closure

Question 11

Gabriel Calvo

Answer 11

developed Marriage Encounter Program in 1962 where “team couple” leads a group of husbands and wives during a weekend in exercises that give them the opportunity to share their emotions and thoughts.
Taught how to make effective communication a part of their everyday lives so that what they learn generalizes to their entire relationship.

Question 12

Relationship Enhancement (RE)

Answer 12

created by Bernard G. Guerney Jr.

a Rogerian communication model, combining an emphasis on the expression of empathic acceptance with instruction in behavioral skills that improve communication

skills-building approach that “can be used with married couples as well as engaged couples” to enrich their lives together.

Skills taught through coaching, modeling, and positive reinforcement are empathic expression, discussion and negotiation, problem and conflict resolution, facilitation (partner coaching), self-change, other change, transfer generalization, and maintenance.

The strength of RE is that it can be used with distressed and nondistressed couples. It is also adaptable to various formats, including weekends and multi-week sessions.

Question 13

PREPARE/ ENRICH Inventories

Answer 13

Developed by David Olson and associates, these inventories identify strengths and growth opportunity areas for couples enrolled in the Growing Together Workshop

Assists couples in dealing with challenges in five areas:

1. communication,
2. conflict resolution,
3. family-of-origin topics,
4. financial planning and
5. budgeting, and goal setting.

Question 14

Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program (PREP)

Answer 14

PREP is a 12-hour program in which couples, either married or unmarried, are taught to become effective communicators and problem solvers while enhancing their commitment to each other. The program is laid out developmentally and systemically, including a beginning session that focuses on accepting responsibility and final sessions that have a couple resolving an actual conflict based on skillshey have learned.

Question 15

Major Theorists in Marriage and Couples Therapy

Answer 15

Susan Johnson

Emotionally focused therapy (EFT)

Question 16

marital quality

Answer 16

How the relationship is functioning and how partners feel about and are influenced by such functioning

2 complicating factors in assessing couples relationships.
1. Feelings expressed about marriage are greatly affected by the events of the moment and can change considerably over short periods of time

2. individuals in distressed relationships sometimes do not report themselves distressed

Question 17

Behavioral couples therapy (BCT)

Answer 17

behavioral couples therapy typically includes four basic components

1. A behavioral analysis of the couple’s marital distress.
2. The establishment of positive reciprocity,
3. Communication skills training.
4. Training in problem-solving. This component of behavioral couples therapy helps equip couples with new problem-solving skills, such as specifying what they want, negotiating for it, and making a contract.

Works best with young couples who do not have a long history of marriage.

Question 18

integrative behavioral couples therapy (IBCT),

Answer 18

adds acceptance to the traditional focus of behavioral couples therapy on overt behavioral change

“Acceptance is demonstrated when an individual tolerates or even embraces potentially unpleasant partner behavior because of a deep understanding of the partner, the self, and the relationship”

emphasizes “the reframing of harder emotions (e.g., hostility) in terms of softer emotions (e.g., sadness) and using insight into lessons learned about intimacy in families of origin to frame present behavior”

Question 19

rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT)

Answer 19

Developed by Albert Ellis who employed an ABC procedure,

A standing for an event,
B standing for a thought, and
C standing for an emotion.

Gladding, Samuel T.. Family Therapy (p. 195). Pearson Education. Kindle Edition.

Question 20

Dattilio and Epstein 5 Most Lethal Forms of Cognition

Answer 20

1. Selective perceptions about the events occurring in couple interactions.
2. Distorted attributions about the causes of positive and negative relationship events.
3. Inaccurate expectations or predictions about events that may occur in the relationship.
4. Inappropriate or inaccurate assumptions or general beliefs about the characteristics of people and their intimate relationships.
5. Extreme or unrealistic standards to which individuals hold relationships and their members.

Question 21

Cognitive Distraction

Answer 21

thinking of something other than negative aspects

Question 22

rational coping statements

Answer 22

self-control strategies

Question 23

relapse prevention

Answer 23

cognitive-behavioral approach that enables clients to learn self-control strategies to prevent relapse and has been applied to the areas of substance abuse, sex offenses, and anger, as well as to family therapy

Question 24

Psychoeducation

Answer 24

reading books, attending workshops, and listening to audiovisual material,

Question 25

EFT

Answer 25

experiential-humanistic, strength-based, systemic intervention to therapy

It focuses on “intrapsychic processes - how partners process their emotional experiences and
interpersonal processes - how partners organize their interactions into patterns and cycles

The roots of the approach are based in attachment theory, Attachment theory is based on the proposition that early relationships pave the way for later interactions

EFT strives to foster the development of more-secure attachment styles in couples by seeing emotions “as a positive force for change in couples therapy” rather than “something to be overcome and replaced with rationality

Question 26

secure attachment bonds

Answer 26

A secure attachment bond is an active, affectionate, reciprocal relationship marked by emotional closeness, comfort, and security”

Question 27

humanistic model of therapy

Answer 27

model focused on growth and human potential rather than dysfunction

Question 28

EFT’s 3 Stage interaction process and its nine steps

Answer 28

Stage 1: CYCLE DEESCALATION
Steps 1 through 4 are involved in this stage, during which time couples are helped to uncover negative or hard feelings that lie beneath their defensive expressions of hurt, anger, and withdrawal.

Stage Two: RESTRUCTING INTERACTIONAL POSITIONSis characterized by withdrawer/reengagement and blamer softening.
Steps 5 through 7 are implemented. Step 5 is the most individually oriented step in the EFT process. In it the therapist “explores the intrapsychic processing of attachment-related affect with more experiential detail”

Stage 3: CONSOLIDATION and INTEGRATION - the therapist reviews the accomplishments of the couple by contrasting their initial negative interactional cycle with their new, positive interactional cycle (Bradley & Johnson, 2005). The focus is on creating secure bonding interactions by reinforcing them.

Question 29

Infidelity

Answer 29

is fundamentally a breach of trust—a relationship that was once a primary source of security is no longer safe

Question 30

Spouses who are seeking to recover after an extramarital affair appear to go through three stages:
3 Stages of Spouses Recovering from Extramarital Affairs

Answer 30

(1) an emotional roller coaster of emotions,
(2) a moratorium, and
(3) trust-building

While these stages may be sequential, they are not without their regressive moments, and the recovery process is often uneven.

Question 31

Snyder et al. interventions regarding the treatment of infidelity is an integrated approach developed by Snyder et al. (2008),

Answer 31

This model is based on three stages, which are not always progressive:

1. Dealing with the initial impact - partners are taught specific skills for managing emotions and decision-making skills for addressing relationship crises
2. Exploring context and finding meaning - partners are guided to examine “factors from within the marriage, from outside their relationship, and from themselves that increased their vulnerability to an affair.”
3. Moving on, - interventions help partners explore personal beliefs about forgiveness[,]… examine how these relate to recovery from the affair,” and are taught interventions that will help strengthen their marriage and protect it from future threats to fidelity

Question 32

3 Ways Couples Accomplish Breaking Up

Answer 32

Divorce therapy

Mediation

Collaboration

Question 33

Divorce therapy

Answer 33

is a part of marital therapy and seeks to help couples separate from each other physically, psychologically, and/or legally. T

EFT and IBCT are two of the best approaches used to overcome difficulties in divorce therapy (Lebow, Chambers, Christensen, & Johnson, 2012).

Goals of divorce therapy include the following:
1. Accepting the end of the marriage.
2. Achieving a functional postdivorce relationship with an ex-spouse.
3. Achieving a reasonable emotional adjustment and finding emotional support.
4. Coping with religious or spiritual angst (Murray, 2002).
5. Realizing the part one played in the dissolving of the marriage. •
6/ Helping the children from the marriage (if there are any) adjust to the loss. •
7. Using the crisis of the divorce as opportunity to learn about oneself and to grow.
8. • Negotiating a reasonably equitable legal settlement. •
9. Developing healthy habits

Question 34

Family mediation

Answer 34

is the process of helping couples and families settle disputes or dissolve their marriages in a nonadversarial way.

Mediation is an increasingly utilized alternative to court action (Wilcoxon, Remley, & Gladding, 2013).

Family therapists are specially trained to function in a legally related role as an impartial, cognitive, neutral third party to facilitate negotiation between disputing parties, often a husband and wife. The objective is to help those involved make an informed and mutually agreed on decision that resolves differences between them in a practical and fair manner.

Question 35

“Collaborative divorce

Answer 35

is an intervention model in which the divorcing couple and attorneys agree, by an explicit, written contract, to work toward a settlement without resorting to litigation” (Blaisure & Saposnek, 2007, p. 47).