In this powerful volume, six qualitative methods are used to analyze a couple therapy with a troubled young couple, illustrating the intricate processes and sub-processes of therapy through client interactions with their therapists and with each other. Increasingly popular for revealing the nuances and complexity of human interactions, qualitative approaches focus on process and discursive methods which can be particularly rewarding in multi-client settings. Through the examples that make up the text, practitioners and researchers become better acquainted with the power of qualitative perspectives and are encouraged to examine their own views on therapy as they consider these and other concepts: The development of dialogical space in a couple therapy session. Introducing novelties into therapeutic dialogue: the importance of minor shifts of the therapist. Therapists’ responses for enhancing change through dialogue: dialogical investigations of change. Fostering dialogue: exploring the therapists’ discursive contributions in a couple therapy. Dominant story, power, and positioning. Constructing the moral order of a relationship in couples therapy. Research Perspectives in Couple Therapy: Discursive Qualitative Methods ably demonstrates the balance between therapeutic art and science for family and couples therapists, psychologists, and other mental health professionals in research and practice.

Bringing together some of the most creative and influential voices in the field, this book draws compelling connections between theory and practice, demonstrates the transformative potential of couple and family intervention, and helps readers maximize the effectiveness of their work in a range of settings. It is a vital resource for therapists of all orientations and also serves as a text in advanced undergraduate or graduate-level courses.

An outgrowth of an Harvard Medical School Couple Therapy Conference, this is the first book on couple and family therapy to combine a range of clinical theories with a single case discussion. At the conference, Jim Framo, Peggy Papp, Norman Paul, and Carlos Sluzki--therapists well-known for their differing styles and theoretical persuasions--described and explained the sessions they each conducted with the same couple. These sessions varied greatly: each has a distinctive focus; two included family of origin members; one involved a co-therapist. Later, other therapists, representing an even broader range of perspectives, discussed their viewpoints and speculated how they might have approached the same case. In ONE COUPLE, FOUR REALITIES: MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES ON COUPLE THERAPY, the experience of attending this conference is recreated and expanded. The reader is first given the same background information about the couple that was supplied to the interviewers and is then presented with edited transcripts and commentary by Framo, Papp, Paul, and Sluzki about their own sessions. Further perspectives and approaches to the case are provided by a number of other teachers of therapy. Thus, the reader is invited to view the couple from over a dozen different perspectives, including psychodynamic, object relations, systemic, behavioral, feminist, contextual, and eclectic orientations. Perhaps the most fascinating perspective is provided by the couple, "Larry' and "Jennifer,' who, in the last section of the book, detail their reactions to the four demonstration sessions. Their stunningly candid and intelligent accounts, given soon after the original interviews, and then again six years later, provide a compelling conclusion to the book. Most published cases are selected retrospectively to illustrate the power of the author's approach. By contrast, this couple was selected in advance: their case, ongoing at the time in a Boston clinic, seemed suitable for the demonstration interviews to be videotaped for the Harvard conference. The couple was bright and engaging. They and their families of origin were willing to participate. The interviewers agreed to document the sessions no matter how they turned out. This prospective method of case selection lent authenticity to the interviews, permitting the viewers, and now the reader, to witness clinical work as it might unfold in the office of any therapist. This volume is not intended to and does not demonstrate the superiority of one approach over another. Each of the four demonstration interviews represents careful, conscientious work, and each leads to a different ``reality' about the couple. Only in a volume such as this can one see in high relief what each approach brings to light and what each obscures. All therapists interested in couples should find this book useful, as it stimulates readers to scrutinize their own theories and practices, consider how they might have approached Larry and Jennifer, and ponder what their own viewpoint may have caused them to overlook. Clinicians will appreciate the theoretical discussions and case analyses. The book is a natural supplemental text for courses in couple or family therapy. Teachers may learn much from the appendix which addresses ethical and therapeutic aspects of using videotaped demonstration interviews--important issues that have been neglected in the professional literature. The book may also have personal resonance for non-professionals interested in exploring the complexity of one couple's relationship. All will find ONE COUPLE, FOUR REALITIES accessible and thought-provoking. Through the lives of "Larry' and "Jennifer,' it addresses timeless and timely questions about the personal, familial, and cultural forces that create, shape, and strain the bonds that hold couples together.

As a quality resource that examines the psychological, neurobiological, cultural, and spiritual considerations that undergird optimal couple care, Foundations for Couples’ Therapy teaches readers to conduct sensitive and comprehensive therapy with a diverse range of couples. Experts from social work, clinical psychotherapy, neuroscience, social psychology, and health respond to one of seven central case examples to help readers understand the dynamics within each partner, as well as within the couple as a system and within a broader cultural context. Presented within a Problem-Based Learning approach (PBL), these cases ground the text in clinical reality. Contributors cover critical and emerging topics like cybersex, emotional well-being, forgiveness, military couples, developmental trauma, and more, making it a must-have for practitioners as well as graduate students.

Most traditional couple therapy models are based on the Eurocentric, middle-class value system and are not effective for today's psychotherapists working in multicultural settings. Multicultural Couple Therapy is the first "hands-on" guide for integrating couple therapy with culture, race, ethnic identity, socioeconomic status, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, and immigration experiences. The editors and a culturally diverse group of contributors follow a common outline of topics across chapters, related to theory, research, practice, and training. They report on the application of major evidence-based models of couple therapy and demonstrate the integral role played by contextually based values involved in relationships, conflict, and resolution. Key Features Presents a multiperspective approach that focuses on specific cultural issues in couple therapy Creates a cultural context for couples to help readers better understand key issues that affect relationships Features a series of compelling "Case Examples" from the authors' personal therapeutic experience in treatment with couples from diverse backgrounds Includes "Additional Resource" sections, including suggested readings, films, and Web sites, as well as experiential exercises and topics for reflection Intended Audience This groundbreaking book provides an in-depth resource for clinicians, supervisors, educators, and students enrolled in courses in couple therapy, marriage and family therapy, and multicultural counseling who are interested in how diverse clients define conflicts and what they consider to be functional solutions.

This book is about the importance of the couple relationship in the broadest terms. It draws on clinical researches into the inner lived world of adult couples, empirical developmental research into children and parenting, as well as the legal setting when relationships break down. It aims to bridge the inner and outer worlds, showing how our most intimate relationships have vital importance at all levels, from the individual and the family, to the social setting - and explores the implications for practice and policy. Above all, it is a book about applications of clinical thinking linked with research knowledge, as tools for front line workers and policy makers alike. It draws on the tradition of applied clinical thinking and research of the Tavistock Centre for Couple Relationships, linking current thinking with the history of ideas in each area it covers, as well as considering implications for the future.

This up-to-date, highly readable, theory-based, and application-oriented book fills a crucial void in literature on couple therapy. Few books in the couple therapy market bridge the gap between theory and practice; texts tend to lean in one direction or the other, either emphasizing theory and research with little practical application, or taking a cookbook approach that describes specific techniques and interventions that are divorced from any conceptual or theoretical base. However, couples therapy requires a high degree of abstract/conceptual thinking, as well as ingenuity, inventiveness and skill on the part of the therapist. Case Studies in Couples Therapy blends the best of all worlds: clinical applications with challenging and diverse couples that have been derived from the most influential theories and models in couples and family therapy, all written by highly experienced and respected voices in the field. In Case Studies in Couples Therapy, readers will grasp the essentials of major theories and approaches in a few pages and then see how concepts and principles are applied in the work of well-known clinicians. The case studies incorporate a wide variety of couples from diverse backgrounds in a number of different life situations. It is simultaneously narrow (including specific processes and interventions applied with real clients) and broad (clearly outlining a broad array of theories and concepts) in scope, and the interventions in it are directly linked to theoretical perspectives in a clear and systematic way. Students and clinicians alike will find the theoretical overview sections of each chapter clear and easy to follow, and each chapter’s thorough descriptions of effective, practical interventions will give readers a strong sense of the connections between theory and practice.