Objective: To follow distressed married couples for 5 years after their participation in a randomized clinical trial. Method: A total of 134 chronically and seriously distressed married couples were randomly assigned to approximately 8 months of either traditional behavioral couple therapy (TBCT; Jacobson & Margolin, 1979) or integrative…

Assessed the prevalence and frequency of marital violence for 88 male alcoholics and their wives at entry to and 1 year after completing a behavioral marital therapy (BMT) program. Although violence and prevalence decreased significantly after treatment, the alcoholics' drinking outcome status was associated with the extent of violence after BMT.…

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of treating depression with coping-oriented couples therapy (COCT) as compared with cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT; A. T. Beck, C. Ward, & M. Mendelson, 1961) and interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT; M. M. Weissman, J. C. Markowitz, & G. L. Klerman, 2000). Sixty couples, including 1…

Attempted to identify predictors of positive treatment outcome following behavioral marital therapy. The only variable that significantly predicted outcome at both posttest and follow-up was a measure reflecting traditional affiliation/independence patterns: couples with a highly affiliative wife and a highly independent husband were less likely…

Describes ways of operationalizing clinically significant change, defined as extent to which therapy moves someone outside range of dysfunctional population or within range of functional population. Uses examples to show how clients can be categorized on basis of this definition. Proposes reliable change index (RC) to determine whether magnitude…

Demonstrated that behavioral marital therapy (BMT) and insight-oriented marital therapy (IOMT) could be rendered in a distinct and uncontaminated fashion in manual-guided outcome research where therapists were crossed with treatment condition. BMT proved to be highly structured, with 93 percent of therapist interventions reflecting behavioral…

A randomized clinical trial compared the effects of traditional behavioral couple therapy (TBCT) and integrative behavioral couple therapy (IBCT) on 134 seriously and chronically distressed married couples, stratified into moderately and severely distressed groups. Couples in IBCT made steady improvements in satisfaction throughout the course of…

Explored the relationships among masculinity, femininity, and marital satisfaction, and response to behavioral marital therapy in married couples (N=126). Results indicated that for each sex, both femininity and masculinity are significantly correlated with self-reported marital satisfaction. (LLL)

Questions adequacy with which insight-oriented marital therapy (IOMT) and behavioral marital therapy (BMT) were represented in Snyder, Wills, and Grady-Fletcher's (1991) comparative treatment study. Contends that BMT treatment manual fails to include recent innovations in behavioral technology and IOMT manual includes many skills integral to BMT.…

Examined the value of assessing affect and attitudes in addition to daily behavior in the prediction of marital satisfaction. Multiple regression analyses and semipartial correlations indicated that the affective and attitudinal variables accounted for more unique variance in marital satisfaction than did the behavioral variables. (Author/ABB)

Investigated whether effectiveness of behavioral marital therapy would be increased by addition of cognitive restructuring and/or emotional expressiveness training for maritally distressed couples. Results from 60 such couples randomly assigned to a variety of treatment combinations revealed that the addition of cognitive restructuring and…

Examined generalization of behavioral marital therapy (BMT) and enhanced behavioral marital therapy (EBMT), which added cognitive restructuring, affection exploration, and generalization training to BMT. Both techniques were effective in decreasing negative communication behaviors and cognitions across settings for couples (n=26), but there was…

In a sample of 134 married couples randomly assigned to traditional or integrative behavioral couple therapy (TBCT vs. IBCT), a multivariate hierarchical growth curve analysis using latent variable regression revealed that measures of communication, behavior frequency, and emotional acceptance acted as mechanisms of change. TBCT led to greater…

This article advocates the use of a problem-oriented approach for the measurement of change in patient status. The objective is to elicit a small number of specific and important problematic behaviors. Therapists can then rate changes in these behaviors periodically. (Author)

Parents of 62 children referred to a behaviorally oriented child psychological clinic provided measures of marital adjustment and their children's behavior before and after treatment. Marital adjustment scores of clinic parents were significantly lower than those of the control sample, although there was considerable overlap between the…