Search

Technological advances provide tremendous opportunities for couple and family interventions to overcome logistical, financial, and stigma-related barriers to treatment access. Given technology's ability to facilitate, augment, or at times even substitute for face-to-face interventions, it is important to consider the appropriate role of different technologies in treatment and how that may vary across specific instances of technology use. To that end, this article reviews the potential contributions of telemental health (aka, telehealth; e.g., videoconferencing to remotely deliver real-time services) and asynchronous behavioral intervention technologies (BITs; e.g., apps, web-based programs) for couple and family interventions. Design considerations-such as software and hardware requirements and recommendations, characteristics of intended users, ways to maximize engagement, and tips for integrating therapists/coaches-are included for both types of technology-based intervention. We also present suggestions for the most effective recruitment and evaluation strategies for technology-based couple and family interventions. Finally, we present legal and ethical issues that are especially pertinent when integrating technology into couple and family interventions. (PsycINFO Database Record [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the impact of couples' agreement regarding relationship problems at therapy intake on subsequent treatment engagement and success. One hundred and 47 couples seeking marital therapy at one of two Veteran Administration Medical Centers completed questionnaires assessing relationship satisfaction and were asked to indicate their three biggest relationship concerns. Agreement on relationship concern was defined as one person's list containing the partner's top relationship problem. Pretreatment agreement on relationship problems was unrelated to treatment course or outcomes when the therapy was longer and more integrative in nature. However, when couples received a brief, problem-focused treatment, agreement predicted greater engagement in therapy process and more positive treatment outcomes. Specifically, couples who were in agreement were more likely to attend the minimum number of required sessions and were more likely to be assessed as having received a full course of therapy by their treatment provider. Additionally, partners who agreed with each other were more likely to experience clinically significant changes during treatment. Taken together, results suggest that therapists and researchers should consider assessing agreement on relationship problems at the beginning of treatment and potentially suggest that couples who perceive their relationship differently should receive more integrative treatment. Future research is needed to examine the most effective sequencing for addressing differing, presenting problems as well as the mechanisms through which disagreement on presenting problems impacts treatment course and outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The revelation of an affair is often an emotionally explosive event for a couple, yet little is known about specific individual and relationship factors that accompany infidelity. The present study examined the qualities of individuals and couples that differentiate couples with (n = 19) and without (n = 115) infidelity using couples from a randomized clinical trial of marital therapy. Findings indicated that couples with infidelity showed greater marital instability, dishonesty, arguments about trust, narcissism, and time spent apart. Gender also proved to be a significant moderator of several effects. Men who had participated in affairs showed increased substance use, were older, and were more sexually dissatisfied. Results offer initial clues to concomitants of affairs for couple therapists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Federal regulations, ethical standards, and state laws governing ethics do not adequately address important issues in couple and family research. Including multiple family members, particularly dependent minors, in research requires the special application of fundamental ethical issues, such as confidentiality, privacy, and informed consent. The sensitive, com mingled nature of couple and family information necessitates clear policies about data ownership and disclosure. Researchers need to have respect for the family as a unit and to evaluate benefits versus harms for the family as well as for individuals. This article highlights areas of potential concern and ambiguity related to abuse reporting and Certificates of Confidentiality and also addresses ethical issues with observational data, intervention studies, longitudinal designs, and computer-assisted research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nonindependent components of couple data require data-analytic strategies tailored to the interpersonal processes occurring between relationship partners. This article examines the benefits of a specifically dyadic analytic method, the actor-partner interdependence model. (APIM), for evaluating interpartner influence across time. Both conceptual and methodological features of the APIM are exemplified by applying this model to observations of negative and positive affect and global distress in spouses participating in a randomized trial of couple therapy. In addition to elucidating specific advantages of the APIM relative to alternative data-analytic strategies, the current results shed new light on previous findings from a comparative treatment outcome study evaluating behavioral and insight-oriented approaches to couple therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Influenced by language and therapeutic discourse as well as the feminist critique of marriage and family therapy, the authors conducted research to evaluate conversational power in marriage and family therapy. Research on interruptions has received the most empirical attention, so the authors examined videotaped therapy sessions to see if women clients were interrupted more than men clients. This strategy integrated scholarship on gender and conversation into research on marriage and family therapy process. Multivariate analysis of variance was used to examine the different treatment of women and men clients; gender of therapist was used as a control variable. Results indicated that marriage and family doctoral students interrupted women clients three times more than men clients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Randomly selected samples of practicing couple therapists who were members of the American Psychological Association's Division 43 or the Association for Marriage and Family Therapy completed a survey of couple problem areas and therapeutic issues encountered in couple therapy. Therapists rated problem areas in terms of occurrence, treatment difficulty, and damaging impact. A composite of these 3 dimensions suggested that the most important problems were lack of loving feelings, power struggles, communication, extramarital affairs, and unrealistic expectations. Comparison of the findings with therapist ratings obtained by S. K. Geiss and K. D. O'Leary (1981) suggests considerable stability in presenting problems in couple therapy over the past 15 years. Therapist-generated characteristics associated with negative outcome were also identified, the most common being partners' inability or unwillingness to change and lack of commitment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

J. F. Alexander et al. (1995) provide a thoughtful and comprehensive framework for conceptualizing the process of developing, evaluating, and using observational coding systems. In this article, the authors attempt to link the framework of Alexander et al. with that proposed by F. Floyd (1989), and they discuss how observational methods may contribute to the advancement of family psychology. They discuss specific issues and recommendations that they believe will contribute to moving the field of behavioral observation forward, including, for example, the ascendance of global over microanalytic coding systems, the importance of considering effects of gender and ethnicity of coders on coding, difficulties in conducting observational research and analyzing observational data, and the persistent problem of capturing low base-rate behaviors using observational methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author recommends a systematic, context-sensitive method for using observation to increase understanding of how change actually occurs in couples and family therapy. In this method, a task analysis of in-session performances on a specific task leads to the building of a model of the change process. This approach is exemplified in the process of in-session conflict resolution in couples therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses critical issues facing the field of marital and family psychology. The author comments that the manner through which couples handle their differences affects marital outcomes more than do differences between two couples. The development of programs that prevent family and marital conflicts are discussed. Several factors affecting longitudinal studies on the prediction of divorce and marital distress are discussed, including recruitment and section of subjects and the use of repetitive measures of marital and family functioning.