Dynamics Of Couples Therapy

In Emotion-Focused Couples Therapy: The Dynamics of Emotion, Love, and Power, authors Leslie S. Greenberg and Rhonda N. Goldman explore the foundations of emotionally focused therapy for couples. They expand its framework to focus more intently on the development of the self and the relationship system through the promotion of self-soothing and other-soothing; to deal with unmet needs both from the client's adulthood and childhood; and to work more explicitly with emotions, specifically fear, anxiety, shame, power, joy, and love. The authors discuss the affect regulation involved in three major motivational systems central to couples therapy - attachment, identity, and attraction and clarify emotions and motivations in the dominance dimension of couples' interactions.Written with practitioners and graduate students in mind, the authors use a rich variety of case material to demonstrate how working with emotions can facilitate change in couples and, by extension, in all situations where people may be in emotional conflict with others. Greenberg and Goldman provide the tools needed to identify specific emotions and show the reader how to work with them to resolve conflict and promote bonding in couples therapy.

Discover how issues of world war and peace relate to the dynamics of couples therapy in this thought-provoking book. In Peace, War, and Mental Health, couples therapists provide diverse views on the links between strengthening marriages and preventing and solving international disputes. Although the contributors vary in their approaches to this issue, a common theme is the belief that couples as well as countries need to build bridges, not walls, for healthy relationships and they need to strive to learn what others are really feeling, thinking, or needing underneath the defenses others exhibit. The contributing therapists in Peace, War, and Mental Health explore the various links between couples in conflict and nations at war. Chapters describe how prevention strategies used for couples in therapy may be applied to the well-being of the world as a whole and how significant change is possible through the involvement of only a small percentage of the population. Other chapters focus on specific tools for couples therapy such as outlines of the major tasks of relationship building and traps that mitigate against good relationship construction, a description of the nuts and bolts of conflict resolution, and the use of flashcards to help both members of the pair present his or her real feelings to the other. Some of the intriguing topics covered in this book include: the relationship between psychotherapy and spirituality and the paradox of individuals longing to belong since each is a part of the whole the role of gender on war and its potential impact on peace the failure of the humanistic movement societal attitudes linking domestic violence and large scale violence how the potential for resolution of differences in couples can be applied to peace among nations how prevention may be expanded to include the “mental health” of the whole world--Part V of an interview with Virginia Satir Peace, War, and Mental Health helps therapists look at international peace and couples therapy with new perspectives, a necessity in today’s rapidly changing family and world climate.

TABLE OF CONTENTS: 1 The Therapeutic Triangle. 2 The First Talk with the Couple. 3 Indicative Criteria for Therapy and the Choice of Therapy Method. 4 Resistance for Couples Therapy. 5 Dynamics of the Relationships in a Therapeutic Triangle. 6 The Therapist's Involvement with the Marital Partners Viewed as Therapeutic Collusion. 7 Sex-Determined Limitations of the Couples Therapist. 8 Couples Therapy Conducted by a Therapist Couple (Cotherapy). 9 Other Methodological Problems. 10 Problems of Value in Couples Therapy. 11 Divorce and Remarriage. 12 Helga and Stani: A Couple in Therapy. 13 What This Book Can Teach.

More and more, therapists are intervening in marital conflicts without waiting to complete the formal assessment process. While most texts begin with theoretical roadmaps for the process of therapy, Dynamic Assessment in Couple Therapy shows therapists how to begin interventions during the process of assessment. By detailing the procedures and techniques for using their innovative Structured Initial Interview (SII), the authors have designed a practical form of intervention to handle both the complexity of the marital journey and the subtle realities of marital roadblocks. As outlined in this innvative book, SII is a creative source of interaction that will stimulate new insights and helpful new directions for therapists and their clients.

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.

Using vivid case studies and vignettes of clinical practice, Crawley and Grant provide a comprehensive overview of couples therapy within a psychodynamic and systemic framework. Arguing that successful work with couples requires an understanding of, and a capacity to engage with, both the individual partners and the dynamics of their relationship, the authors show how theoretical understanding of the phenomenon of the couple relationship plays out in the practical issues that confront the counselor or therapist working with couples.