This essential handbook describes effective treatments for a particularly challenging clinical population: couples struggling with both relationship distress and individual mental health difficulties. Distinguished scientist-practitioners provide detailed accounts of their respective approaches, reviewing conceptual and empirical foundations as well as clinical procedures. Included are well-established treatments for couples in which one or both partners has anxiety, mood disorders, schizophrenia, substance abuse, sexual dysfunction, or physical aggression. Also covered are emerging couple-based approaches to managing personality disorders, PTSD, difficulties related to aging and physical illness, and other problems. Following a standard format to facilitate comparison across treatments, each chapter is illustrated with detailed case material. Provided are powerful insights and tools for couple and family therapists, clinicians providing individual therapy, and students in any mental health discipline.

First Published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Up to 65% of couples who seek therapy for marital problems have had at least one prior violent episode. Unfortunately, therapists often miss this critical information because they do not effectively assess for it. This book presents a safety-focused approach to assessment and treatment of couples who choose to remain together after one or both partners have been violent. Treatment options for intimate partner violence have evolved alongside the growing awareness and broader definitions of domestic violence. Since 1997 the authors have conducted Domestic Violence Focused Couples Treatment (DVFCT), collected data, and refined their program. The authors outline their assessment and screening process and share case illustrations to demonstrate when conjoint treatment can be a safe and viable option. Readers get an overview of the 18-session course of DVFCT and tips for adapting it for multi-couple groups or for a single couple. The major tenets of solution-focused therapy, such as underscoring even the smallest of successes, are emphasized throughout, as are the following special features: -safety planning -mindfulness techniques for anger awareness and reduction -negotiated time-out procedures -drug and alcohol use modules -psychoeducational tools and materials on violence Therapists will learn how to assess intimate partner violence and help couples eliminate all forms of violence and begin on a positive path toward their vision of a healthy relationship.

An ideal supplemental text, this instructive casebook presents in-depth illustrations of treatment based on the most important couple therapy models. An array of leading clinicians offer a window onto how they work with clients grappling with mild and more serious clinical concerns, including conflicts surrounding intimacy, sex, power, and communication; parenting issues; and mental illness. Featuring couples of varying ages, cultural backgrounds, and sexual orientations, the cases shed light on both what works and what doesn't work when treating intimate partners. Each candid case presentation includes engaging comments and discussion questions from the editor. See also Clinical Handbook of Couple Therapy, Fourth Edition, also edited by Alan S. Gurman, which provides an authoritative overview of theory and practice.

This third edition of Couples in Treatment helps readers conceptualize and treat couples from multiple perspectives and with a multitude of techniques. The authors do not advocate any single approach to couple therapy and instead present basic principles and techniques with wide-ranging applicability and the power to invite change, making this the most useful text on integrative, systemic couple therapy. Throughout the book the authors consider the individual, interactional, and intergenerational systems of any case. Gerald Weeks’ Intersystems Model, a comprehensive, integrative, and contextual meta framework, can be superimposed over existing therapy approaches. It emphasizes principles of therapy and can facilitate assessing, conceptualizing couples’ problems, and providing helpful interventions. Couple therapists are encouraged to utilize the principles in this book to enhance their therapeutic process and fit their approach to the client, rather than forcing the client to fit their theory.

The Coches, teaching and professional therapists, present a model of couples group psychotherapy: conceptualizing treatment; conducting group meetings; incorporating this form of treatment into clinical practice: and evaluating the success of the group and couples involved. Annotation copyright Book"

In some ways the development of the theory and practice of marital therapy seems like a relative newcomer to those clinicians who practice systems therapy. Most of the books in the field stress the total family as the unit of treatment in terms of understanding the dynamics of family interactions and intervention techniques. For the past 15 or 20 years, clinicians interested in systems work sought training in "family" therapy programs and at "family" therapy workshops. This training led to a dramatic shift in the practice of psychotherapy away from the individual as the unfit of treatment to the family. Much less emphasis has been given to the marital dyad or couple as the unit of treatment.