Couples Therapy

Question 1

Strategies for relationship maintenance

Answer 1

Trust
- Honesty, reliability

Communication
- Openness

Commitment
- Collaboration, putting in the effort

Safety

Acceptance
- Accepting one another

Question 2

How is couples counseling different from individual therapies?

Answer 2

Couple sessions can be scenes of rapid escalation

Partners can often have conflicting goals for the therapy & make attribution errors
- Often one spouse comes to drop off their partner at a therapist’s doorstep before exiting

“I’m okay, you are the problem!”

Question 3

Couples Counseling

Answer 3

LGBTQ individuals & interracial romantic partnerships
face many of the same relational concerns

• However, there are additional challenges due to
  to homophobia & both socio-cultural and legal discrimination
• Interracial couples report feeling as though their family, friends,
  and society at large are more disapproving of their
  relationships than do same-race couples (Lehmiller & Agnew,
  2006)

Question 4

Does couples therapy work?

Answer 4

Research supports the effectiveness
- Overall, couples therapy helped 60 to 75
percent of the couples

Long term effectiveness is less clear
- The follow-up studies performed showed diminishing
effects of 30 to 60 per cent over time

Question 5

Strengths

Answer 5

In most systematic approaches, neither the individual nor the family is blamed for a particular dysfunction

It tends to be relatively short-term compared to most
individual therapy approaches

Makes good use of resources

Preventive focus is helpful
- Engaged and newlywed couples who engaged in
premarital prevention program – less than half as likely
to separate over the next 3 years compared to
couples who did not

Question 6

Limitations

Answer 6

An overemphasis on the system may result in
the unique characteristics of individual family
members being overlooked

There has been relatively little work on
understanding the processes of systems therapy
that contribute to its effectiveness

Most of the theories have been based on
Western culture
- Danger of practitioners assuming that Western models of family are
universal or the norm

Question 7

Dysfunctional communication

Answer 7

Gottmans 4

1. Contempt
2. Stonewalling
3. Defensiveness
4. Criticism

Question 8

Corrective communication

Answer 8

Active Listening:

Paraphrase “Are you saying you XXX?”
Reflection “This seems so difficult for
you to talk about.”
Perception checking “Are you upset
right now?”

Validation: “What you’re saying or feeling is legitimate”

Question 9

Maintenance

Answer 9

Cognitive Interdependence
- Becoming a “we”

Perceived Superiority
- We will never be like those couples

Inattention to Alternatives
- Derogation of tempting alternates

Question 10

Other maintenance strategies include

Answer 10

Willingness to sacrifice: both small sacrifices and larger, more significant ones

Accommodation: willingness to control the impulse to respond to a partner’s provocation

Michaelangelo phenomenon: encouraging your partner to be all that s/he can be–supporting growth and development

Self-control

Play! - finding new things to do with one another, savoring time together

Forgiveness