Basic concepts in existential psychotherapy with couples and families

Existential psychotherapy with couples and families is a treatment approach that pays close attention to both problems and the meanings and meaning potentials to be found in daily marital and family life. The author reviews both the elements and treatment dynamics to be found in existential treatment with couples and families and overviews the practice of creative interaction between the existential psychotherapist and the marital and/or family members requesting help.     

Gender Role Ideology as a Moderator of the Relationship between Social Power Tactics and Marital Satisfaction

The study examined whether the Power Interaction Model is applicable for explaining the choice of power tactics in conflict situations among Israeli married couples. In addition, gender role ideology was tested as a moderator of the relationship between power usage and marital satisfaction. Seventy-eight couples reported on self usage and spouse’s usage of power tactic behaviors during conflicts and completed questionnaires assessing marital satisfaction, gender role ideology (traditional, liberal) and demographics. Findings indicated greater agreement within couples for harsh rather than for soft tactic preference. As expected, preference for harsh tactics was associated with lower marital satisfaction yet gender role ideology moderated this association. The role of conflict and power usage in traditional and liberal families was addressed.     

Communication Schemata Within the Family

Analyses from a random sample of 169 families established a dear relationship between schemata for marital and parent-child communication. Hypotheses were derived by theoretically relating the Relational Dimensions Inventory and the Revised Family Communication Patterns instrument. In families headed by Traditional, Separate, and Separate/Traditional couples, all three family members saw the family interaction as high on conformity orientation. In families headed by Independent and Traditional couples, all three family members saw the family interaction as high on conversational orientation. In general, couple types dovetail with the various family types. For example, Traditional couples have Consensual family interaction patterns in that they value conformity and conversation. Families who share the same family communication schemata appear to agree on a number of other dimensions of family life. A new scale, Family Communication Environment, which may be used to tap into family communication schemata, is presented.     

Dyadic effects of marital satisfaction on coparenting in Chinese families: Based on the actor‐partner interdependence model

Based on the actor‐partner interdependence model, this study explored the spillover and crossover effects of marital satisfaction on coparenting in Chinese nuclear and extended families. Spillover and crossover effects refer to the transfer of experiences, affects or behaviors, focusing on the intra‐personal and inter‐personal transfer of a marital subsystem to a coparenting subsystem. The participants comprised 279 couples with children ranging in age from 3 to 7 years old. The marital satisfaction and extent of coparenting of both the fathers and the mothers was tested to examine the dyadic interaction. Structural equation modeling results revealed significant intra‐personal and inter‐personal correlations between marital satisfaction and coparenting, indicating spillover and crossover effects in nuclear and extended families, and there were no differences between the two family structures. The results indicated that fathers' marital satisfaction influenced both fathers' and mothers' coparenting practices.     

Evaluating a brief prevention program for improving marital conflict in community families.

Marital conflict is related to well-being in children and adults (E. M. Cummings & P. T. Davies, 2002). Marital conflict is likely most effectively ameliorated before it becomes clinically significant. However, families without significant problems may be unwilling to participate in couples therapies or other lengthy or intensive interventions. Responding to this gap, the authors developed a 4-session psychoeducational program about marital conflict for community families. Couples with children 4-8 years of age were randomly blocked into 1 of 3 groups: (1) a parent-only group (n = 24), (2) a parent-child group (n = 33), or (3) a self-study group (n = 33). Pre- and posttest and 6-month and 1-year assessments were conducted. This report evaluates (a) whether participation in a psychoeducational program for parents improved marital conflict, especially concerning ways of expressing disagreements, and (b) whether changes in marital conflict subsequently improved marital satisfaction, parenting, and child adjustment. Greater constructive and less destructive marital conflict was observed at all assessments for treatment groups, and these changes were linked with improvements in other family processes. The findings support the promise of brief, psychoeducational programs for improving marital conflict for community samples.     

Does Absence Make the Heart Grow Fonder? Work-Related Travel and Marital Satisfaction

Using a sample of 961 dual-earner couples, the authors examined the relationship between work-related travel and marital satisfaction, using gender role attitudes and parental status as moderators. For women and men with children, the impact of travel is generally consistent with gender role congruence theory, which posits that marital satisfaction will be highest when gender role attitudes and gender role behaviors are congruent. Generally, when one holds traditional gender role attitudes, marital satisfaction is stable or enhanced when the husband travels, and is lower when the wife travels. Nontraditional parents are generally less happy if either member travels. The results were less predictable among couples without children in the home.     

ABSTRACTS OF LITERATURE

This is a clinical essay describing a theory of marital conflict. The data were obtained by sending an unstructured questionnaire to four hundred caseworkers in 104 member agencies throughout the United States and by stimulating local study groups to prepare reports in depth on such topics. There is a "marital balance," which helps keep the family in equilibrium and is derived from courtship and in the early years of marriage. The breakdown of the "marital balance," and the conflicts resulting, are described, including the point at which couples apply for help. Good and bad prognostic factors in terms of case-work intervention and treatment of marital conflict are described. Although outcome is described as "optimistic," there are no data describing outcome results. Research implications are made.     

Perceptions of marital interaction and change during pregnancy: A typological approach

Much of the literature on the transition to parenthood suggests that pregnancy and childbirth arc associated with decreases in marital satisfaction. Recent developments, however, demonstrate that this decrease in couples' satisfaction may be complicated by a number of factors. Among other things, the way couples interact may play a central role in their adjustment to the changes typically associated with pregnancy and childbirth. The purpose of this study was to examine whether couples who espouse varying patterns of interaction also have differing experiences of changes in marital needs and concerns during pregnancy. Couples (N= 190) enrolled in childbirth classes completed a series of questionnaires including Fitzpatrick's Relational Dimensions Instrument and a measure assessing perceived changes in their marital needs and concerns. Results indicated that husbands and wives differed in terms of the amount of nurturance they felt they gave and received, their tendency to worry since pregnancy, and their views concerning their sexual relationship. When changes in needs and concerns were compared across the various couple types, a number of patterns emerged. Wives in Traditional, Separate/Traditional, and Separate/Independent marriages felt they received significantly more nurturance since pregnancy than did wives in Independent marriages. Husbands in Separate/Traditional relationships noted greater increases in worrying than did other husbands. Finally, although couples varied in the frequency of conflict reported, they did not differ with regard to changes in conflict or the influence of such changes on their marriages.     

The First Year of Family- and Couple-initiated Marriages of a Turkish Sample: A Longitudinal Investigation

One hundred and thirty Turkish couples were interviewed twice during the first year of marriage. One fifth of the couples were involved in traditional family-initiated marriages and the rest were involved in Western-style couple-initiated marriages. The interviews included questions related to demographic measures, marital functioning, and relationships with social network. Analyses revealed earlier parenthood, greater decision power of women for housework-related decisions, and less frequent interaction with wife's than husband's family during the first months of marriage for family- than for couple-initiated marriages. Similarities such as gender stereotypic division of labour and marital decision making, high degrees of reported emotional involvement with spouse, reports of close feelings for and almost weekly contacts with the families of origin were also found. It was seen that, with time, husbands contributed more to traditional male duties and that the reported frequency of interaction with families and friends decreased. There was some evidence, with respect to interaction with social network, of convergence between the two types of marriage within the first year. The results were discussed in relation to interplay of marital typologies with time and culture.     

Marital interaction and depression

In this article, patterns of marital interaction as a function of depression and marital satisfaction are examined. The purpose of the study was to separate dysfunctional marital interaction patterns that were unique to depression from those that were associated with marital distress. The presence or absence of a depressed wife was crossed with level of marital satisfaction (distressed or nondistressed) to produce four groups of subject couples. Couples in which the wife was depressed exhibited more depressive behavior than did nondepressed couples, but only during discussion of a high conflict (as opposed to neutral) topic. Sex X Depression Level X Marital Satisfaction interactions were found for aggressive behavior: Depressed women in nondistressed relationships exhibited behavior that was characteristic of maritally distressed couples (high rates of aggression). In contrast, the husbands of these women exhibited behavior that one would expect in happily married couples (low rates of aggression). We failed to replicate previous findings that depressive behavior served a coercive function, although distressed couples, regardless of depression status, exhibited all the usual signs of negative dysfunctional interaction. In general, the findings suggested that marital distress rather than depression per se may be responsible for the dysfunctional interaction patterns frequently observed in depressed couples.     

Notes towards a psychoanalytic understanding of the couple relationship

In this paper an attempt is made to demonstrate how a particular orientation to contemporary psychoanalytic concepts may be useful to an understanding of the nature of the marital, or couple, relationship. The unconscious forces which may attract two people to each other, which may influence the patterns of their interaction and which may result in psychic stagnation or development are outlined. The second part of the paper addresses the nature of the therapeutic relationship with the patient couple. A hypothesis is offered regarding possible diagnostic criteria for choosing whether to work with a couple presenting for couple psychotherapy employing one psychotherapist or two psychotherapists working as a co-therapy pair. (The usual practice of myself and my colleagues at the Tavistock Institute of Marital Studies is to see our patient couples with a co-therapist partner).     

A social learning analysis of couples during the second postnatal month

Abstract

This study examined the marital satisfaction and behaviors of 32 couples at one and two months following the births of their first children. Self-report measures of daily satisfaction and daily spouse-observed behaviors were analyzed for patterns approximating those associated with distressed marital interaction identified through earlier social learning studies. Over the time period from 30 to 60 days postnatally, increases were found in spouses' tendency to reciprocate one another's behavior. Except for helpful behaviors involved with care of the infant, spouses at two months postnatally were more likely to reciprocate both irritating and rewarding behaviors than at one month. Nonsignificant decreases in marital satisfaction were accompanied by a mixed pattern of change for spouse-observed behaviors. Predicted changes over time in the proportions of pleasing and displeasing behaviors were evident in only half the comparisons. Increases over time were found for the predictability from spouse-reported daily behaviors to marital satisfaction, but an expected increase in the importance of negative behaviors to the multiple correlation with satisfaction was not obtained. Cross-lagged panel correlation analysis indicated that, for wives, increases in satisfaction at 30 days preceded a parallel increase in their reports of rewarding behaviors and a decrease in aversive behaviors from their husbands at 60 days postnatally. Implications of these findings for identification of couple risk factors for later clinical problems and for early family intervention are discussed.     

Wives' and Husbands' Cortisol Reactivity to Proximal and Distal Dimensions of Couple Conflict

Poor marital quality has been linked repeatedly to spouses' health problems, with alterations to physiological stress response systems, such as the hypothalamic‐pituitary‐adrenocortical (HPA) axis, as one putative mechanism. This study assessed wives' and husbands' HPA axis (i.e., cortisol) reactivity to marital criticism during laboratory‐based conflict discussions, in the context of marital aggression experienced during the previous year. Ninety‐five couples provided one saliva sample prior to—and three samples following—a triadic family conflict discussion involving their teenage child. Marital criticism during the conflict discussion was related to heightened HPA reactivity for husbands only. For wives, an interaction emerged between criticism during the conflict and previous‐year marital aggression: only those wives who had experienced high levels of marital aggression demonstrated a positive association between criticism and cortisol output. Husbands thus appeared to be more physiologically reactive to the in‐the‐moment critical behaviors, whereas wives' responses to proximal conflict were related to previous and perhaps more chronic experiences of marital aggression. These findings shed light on ways in which within‐couple processes during family conflicts involving children contribute to individual physiological functioning, enhancing our understanding of the role of family relationships in physical health outcomes.     

Professional Politics and the Concepts of Family Therapy, Family Consultation, and Systems Consultation

At a time when an increasing number of professionals are calling themselves "family therapists," many teachers and theorists in this field are troubled that the term "family therapy" no longer adequately characterizes the concepts or activities of the field. Recently, clinical, political, and economic circumstances have emerged that suggest the need for alternatives to the role of "family therapist." By adding the roles of family consultant and systems consultant, we can open up new options for ourselves and our clients. During initial contacts with families, agencies, and other professionals, we can heighten our therapeutic potential by proceeding with consultative stocktaking, not starting with therapy. Family consultation also can assist in redirecting therapy when a new problem or an impasse develops, in focusing on competency rather than on pathology, and in engaging constructively with families that have a physically or mentally ill member.     

The relationship between family‐of‐origin experiences and sexual satisfaction in married couples

This study examined the relationship between perceptions of family‐of‐origin experiences, sexual satisfaction and marital quality. The sample consisted of 3953 married couples who responded to the relationship evaluation. The results showed that more positive overall family‐of‐origin experiences and parent–child relationships were related to higher sexual satisfaction. Overall, family‐of‐origin experiences and parent–child relationships were predictive of higher sexual satisfaction; however, that relationship was significantly mediated by marital quality. There was a strong positive relationship between marital quality and sexual satisfaction. No major gender differences emerged from the findings. The results suggest that family‐of‐origin experiences play a key role in the sexual satisfaction of married couples, especially when mediated by marital quality, and should be considered in treatment, education and research.     

Family- versus couple-initiated marriages in Turkey: Similarities and differences over the family life cycle

The present study aimed to investigate marital relationships of the Urban Turkish family. Questionnaires were given to both members of 430 couples at various stages of the marriage cycle. Information concerning demographic characteristics, spousal feelings, marital functioning, including division of labour and satisfaction with division of labour, decision-making, and conflict; and relationships with social network, including feelings for families of origin and frequency of interaction with families was obtained. Results revealed that in comparison to family-initiated marriages, couple-initiated marriages were more emotionally involving, less enmeshed with families, more egalitarian, and involved fewer conflicts. However, over successive stages of the marital cycle, conflict declined in family-initiated marriages and division of labour became less equalitarian in couple-initiated marriages. No differences between the two types of marriage emerged with respect to decision-making and conflict management style. Wives were reportedly more influential with respect to decisions concerning families and children than their husbands in both types of marriage. Couples at later stages of the marital cycle reported lower emotional involvement and less equalitarian division of labour. Relationships between educational level and various marital measures were also obtained. The results are discussed in relation to the possibly different marital schema entertained by men and women within the modernising context of Turkey and with respect to possibly different effects of modernization on different aspects of marraige.     

Hope‐Focused and Forgiveness‐Based Group Interventions to Promote Marital Enrichment

The authors report a clinical trial (N = 43 couples) that compares a hope‐focused marital enrichment (E. L. Worthington et al., 1997) with empathy‐centered forgiveness‐based marital enrichment (M. E. McCullough, 1997; E. L. Worthington, 1998a) and a wait‐list control. Treatment group couples improved relative to the wait‐list control group in observational measures of communication. Hope‐focused marital enrichment produced clinically relevant changes in marital communication, increasing the ratio by 3 to 5 positive to negative interaction ratio units. Hope‐focused marital enrichment is discussed in comparison with previous research, which was conducted with couples meeting conjointly. The forgiveness‐based marital enrichment psychoeducational group is one of the 1st studies of forgiveness interventions in couples research.     

Searching for a normal life: personal accounts of adults with schizophrenia, their parents and well-siblings

Using a life course perspective, the research examines personal accounts of adults with schizophrenia, and their parents and well-siblings from six families. Accounts of multiple members of the same family, including the family member with schizophrenia, are used to describe how families understand and accommodate life changes that result from the illness. Families describe the loss of a normal life as one of the most devastating aspects of schizophrenia. We present the personal and social losses described by adults with schizophrenia and their well family members, and document families' search for ways that their ill family member can achieve or maintain valued social roles. The concerns of well family members for the future of the ill family member and ways families contemplate transfer of care issues are described. Implications of the study for community research and action are discussed.     

Testing the long-term efficacy of a prevention program for improving marital conflict in community families

Family-focused prevention programs for community samples have potentially broad, clinically relevant implications but few studies have examined whether any program benefits continue to be observed over the long term. Although benefits of a marital conflict focused parent education program, the Happy Couples and Happy Kids (i.e., HCHK) program, were supported in a study based on pre-test, post-test, 6-month follow-up, and 1-year follow-up assessments, the longer-term stability of treatment effects has not been established. Couples with children between 4 and 8 years of age who had previously participated in the HCHK study completed a two-year follow-up, including a parent-only group (PO, n = 12); parent-child group (PC, n = 15); and a self-study group (SS, n = 12). Greater knowledge about the effects of marital conflict on families and behavioral improvements in constructive conflict, and specifically in problem-solving behaviors, were observed at the two-year follow-up for couples who received the HCHK program. Reflecting an innovative analysis of mediating mechanisms, change-to-change analyses showed that these changes were linked with improvements in other family processes over time, including marital satisfaction, parenting and child adjustment. The findings support the relatively long-term efficacy of brief, psychoeducational programs for educating community samples about marital conflict and family processes.