Chapter 9 Marriage and Relationship Education Flashcards
“Marriage is the first bond of society” was said by who?
Marcus Tullius CICERO
Recent scholarly summaries have detailed the various ____ , _____ , ______ , and _____ benefits of happy marriage to the couple themselves, to the children raised within these unions, and to the broader society
social
physical
sexual
economic
general US population still have between what percent of ending marriage?
40 - 50%
what is the answer to increase the chance of happy and stable unions?
Marriage and relationship education (MRE) which is a subspecialty of FLE
Marriage and Relationship Education is what?
any preventative effort to help couples gain knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to establish and maintain a healthy couple relationship
marriage educators work preventatively - they work “____”
upstream
to help couples anticipate and avoid serious disruption through the learning and practice of marital virtues, science supported principles, and skills
earliest forms of MRE can be traced back to what year?
1930’s
in the 1930’s MRE started as a premarital education program established where?
merrill-palmer institute
early premarital counseling was established where?
Philadelphia marriage council which included a strong educational emphasis
____ played a key role in premarital educational efforts through premarital counseling
churches
Berger and Hannah provide what?
preventative approaches in couples therapy
cognitive behavioral perspective
found in 8 of 13 approaches
assumes that couples can be taught, in an educational setting, ways of thinking (attitudes and expectations) and behaving (communication and conflict management) that enhance their chances for successful marriage
3 emphasis of marital process research
marital disruption and understanding the processes that lead to MARITAL BREAKDOWN
- focuses on communication process, how conflict is managed and addresses problems
INTERPERSONAL characteristics of spouses and positive interpersonal processes for establishing and maintaining a strong, healthy marriage
- marital virtues or spousal strengths such as positivity, friendship, and generosity, fondness, admiration, affection and respect, humility, compassion, positivity
attention to elements some scholars call “TRANSFORMATIVE processes in marriage” which include forgiveness, commitment, sacrifice, and sanctification
Sound marital house theory
has deep marital friendship as foundation
includes:
friendship elements
- love maps
- fondness and admiration
- positivity
- turning to each other
regulation of conflict
creating share meaning
- meshing individual and family life dreams together
Marital Virtues perspective
the best way to a good marriage is to be a good person
friendship, loyalty, generosity, and justice
skills operate in value centered culture. you listen well because you are patient and generous
transformative processes
self regulation of commitment, forgiveness, sacrifice, sanctification and commitment
repair when mistakes are made
constraint commitment and personal dedication
constraint commitment
comprises costs and forces that keep marriage together, even if a couple would rather break up
personal dedication
an intentional decision and desire to stay in a marriage for mutual benefit
involves sacrificing for it, investing in it, linking personal goals and considering partner’s welfare
place a great priority on relationship, feel greater satisfaction with giving, and are less likely to seek greener marital pastures
Gottman’s 7 principles for making a marriage work
- enhance your love maps - show you care, love language learn about spouse
- nurture fondness and admiration - respecting each other
- turn toward each other instead of away - bids for connection (a look, a gesture), wanting connecting
– these make up the basis for good sex, romance, and passion
- let your partner influence you
- solve solvable problems / let unsolvable problems go
- overcome gridlock - dreams within your conflict; make marriage safe enough to reveal dreams
- create shared meaning.- rituals and share them
comprehensive framework for marriage education (CoFraME)
to offer a framework to help marriage educators think more thoroughly, systematically, broadly, and creatively about intervention opportunities
content - what is taught in MRE
intensity - how intense is MRE high to low
methods - how MRE is taught and learned
timing - when MRE is taught
setting - where MRE is taught
target - who is taught in MRE
delivery - who teaches MRE
National Extension Relationship and Marriage Education Model (NERMEM)
focuses on the content of MRE
will help educators design, deliver and evaluate programs that support healthy couple and marital relationships
choose
- the central importance of intentionality –> decide to make relationship a priority
know
- the development of intimate knowledge of partner
- –> develop what you know and what you believe about partner
care
- demonstrating kindness, affection, understanding, respect and caring support
care for self
- maintaining physical, psychological and sexual health and wellness as individual
share
- developing and maintaining friendship and sense of “we” ; spending meaningful time together
manage
- strategies of engagement and interaction around differences, stresses, and issues of safety
connect
- engaging social support, community ties and sources of meaning
traditional MRE programs
typically fairly intensive, face to face, multisession educational interventions,
most often taking place in community or church settings
31-37% of couples participate in premarital education
self directed MRE approach
education interventions initiated and participated in independently by the couple at home, with little or no external professional intervention
flexible delivery where participants access material at a time and place that suits them
examples - books, magazines, internet articles, dads, etc
empirically supported treatment (EST) had how many programs?
13
how many programs were designated as efficacious EST?
4
programs met the EST designation if they…
supported by 2 or more published outcome studies by separate research teams
included control or comparison groups and random assignment
couple communication program (CCP)
focus is to teach practical communication skills
emphasize collaborative marriage
recognize the difference between effect and ineffective ways of talking and listening
increase self awareness and develop listening skills
taught process for mapping issues
5-6 sessions with instructor for a total of 8 hours
relationship enhancement (RE)
based on the assumption that problems are inevitable and the most effective way to resolve relationship problems and enhance quality is to teach skills for constructively solving problems that meet the needs of everyone involved
2 day weekend for multisession (15 hours total)
prevention and relationship enhancement program (PREP)
focuses on training couples in communication, conflict resolution and problem solving skills
goal is to build protective factors through these skills and reduce relationship risk factors
full day workshop plus 2 hour weeknight sessions (12 hours Total)
CoupleCARE
focus is to help couples recognize and define strengths and vulnerabilities in their relationships and to develop personal and couple goals that will strengthen the relationship
emphasis on self change and the recognition that relationship enhancement is a matter of partners taking responsibility for changing their own behavior
self directed
6 sessions (6 hours total)
effectiveness of MRE
recent meta-analyses show that MRE produced moderate effect sizes for both relationship quality and communication skills
most of these programs are traditional, workshop setting
promising evidence of effectiveness is emerging for non-traditional, self directed, flexible deliver approaches to ME, some even rivaling traditional approaches
extension service programs show promise but limited evaluation data
7 best practices of MRE
grounded in theory and research
evidence based
tailors program development and implementation to audience
encourages involvement of higher risk couples
offered at change points
promotes early presentation of relationship problems
works to enhance accessibility of evidence based programs
3 steps to creating own program
problem analysis
program design
pilot testing
challenges and future direction
target
- audiences increasing in risk level and diversity
timing
- continue engaged, but expand timing to high school, young adults, cohabitating, remarrying
setting
-religious settings continue and grow; special emphasis on military
content
- communication and problem solving continue; increased emphasis on virtues, tailored approaches
methods
- empty more active learning and self guided approaches
dosage
- greater variety of dosage other than modal 12 hour; vary with self guided approaches
bright prospects
- more participants in MRE than in past
real challenges
- meet with growing diversity, ambiguity of government support
