Assessing and measuring client motivation to change has been of great interest to therapists and researchers in a variety of fields. This article presents the results of an exploratory factor analysis of the University of Rhode Island Change Assessment (URICA), a measure of motivation to change, in a sample of individuals in couple therapy. Four…

Examined changes in response control patterns exhibited by five married couples who participated in two brief psychotherapy groups. Used the Ericson-Rogers Relational Coding System to score the control direction of interactions between group members. Found individual flexibility increased for each of these relationships over the course of group…

Demonstrated the effect of a contingency contracting treatment package for treating a distressed couple. A multi-method assessment package was used. The treatment package was responsible for producing behavior change and changes in levels of satisfaction. Multi-assessments provided the therapist with concrete data on a couple's progress in…

Several theorists have advocated marital therapy in treatment programs for alcoholics. Given the promise of marital therapy for alcoholics, it is important to develop successful techniques for recruitment. One approach toward improving recruitment is to identify the characteristics of couples who are likely to accept or reject marital therapy.…

Distressed couples were assigned to behavioral marital therapy, communication therapy, or a wait-list. Treated couples demonstrated more change than controls in marital problems and general communication patterns, but not in feelings toward spouse or communication during conflict resolution discussions. No overall differences were reported between…

Investigated the relative effectiveness of therapeutic components common to behavioral marital therapies: procedures designed to change behavior and attitudes, and nonspecific therapeutic effects. Ordering produced three treatment conditions--nonspecific, behavioral, and behavioral-attitudinal. The behavioral-attitudinal group showed significantly…

Marital therapy couples (N=47) completed inventories measuring unrealistic beliefs about self and unrealistic beliefs about marital relationships. Results indicated unrealistic beliefs were negatively associated with: estimated chance for improvement in therapy, desire to improve the relationship, preference for marital versus individually…

Evaluates effectiveness of training in active listening skills. Couples trained in the skills became significantly more accurate in their perceptions of spouses' attitudes and feelings. Results indicate that greater accuracy did not have a significant effect on marital adjustment. (Author)