THERAPIST DEFENSIVENESS AND MARITAL THERAPY PROCESS AND OUTCOME |
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| Authors: | Holly Barrett Waldron Charles W Turner Cole Barton James F Alexander Victor B Cline |
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| Institution: | 1. Waldron is an Associate Professor of Psychology , The University of New Mexico Cole Barton, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Psychology, Davidson College , Davidson, NC, 28036;2. psychology , University of Utah , Salt Lake City, UT, 84112 |
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| Abstract: | Abstract This study examined the effect of couple socioeconomic status (SES); pretherapy marital adjustment; and therapist, husband, and wife defensiveness during the third session of marital therapy on posttherapy marital adjustment. Participants were 22 therapists and 88 couples. Each therapist treated 4 couples, 2 from the middle SES level and 2 from the lower SES level. Path analyses revealed that for husbands higher marital satisfaction before therapy was associated with higher adjustment at the end of therapy, but defensive therapist behavior during therapy was associated with lower posttherapy adjustment. A similar pattern was found for wives, but this should be interpreted with caution owing to potential dependencies in the wives' posttherapy adjustment scores. Neither SES nor pretherapy adjustment predicted therapist defensive behavior in therapy, and SES did not predict marital therapy outcome variance. Results suggest that therapist defensive behavior may reflect a style or characteristic of some marital therapists. |
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