Marital and Family Therapy: A Decade Review

Abstract

ed with permission from A.S. Gurman and D.P. Kniskern, on marital and family therapy; Progress, perspective and prospect. In Handbook of Psychotherapy and Behavior Change, by Garfield and Bergin (1978). superior to those reported for individual therapies. The following implications for practice are supported by the empirical research and overlap with the recommendations Gurman and Kniskern (1978b) make for the training of marriage and family therapists: 1 . Conjoint marital therapy appears more useful than individual therapy for improving marital relationships. 2. Family therapy appears as effective as individual therapy for a wide range of presenting problems. However, for most presenting problems, it is not possible to specify the best type of family treatment. 3. No one school of marital or family therapy has been demonstrated to be effective with a wide range of presenting problems. 4. Therapist relationship skills are important regardless of the conceptual orientation or school of the family therapist. Advances and Suggestions for Outcome Research The decade of the 1970s has seen the following advances in the empirical evaluation of relationship therapy: 1. Use of multimethod assessment aimed at multiple levels. 2. Increased use of objective as well as subjective data. 3. Inclusion of comparison and control groups. 4. Use of short-term followups. 5. Acknowledgment of deterioration. 6. Development of sequential research projects which link an understanding of relationship dynamics to intervention. The following are recommendations for future outcome research based upon the progress already documented. There should be: 1. Increased assessment of outcome by practicing therapists, which will require diagnosis and followup assessment. 2. Continued use of multiple outcome measures, including combinations of subjective, objective, and system-relevant measures. 3. Greater specification of treatment procedure applied to a narrowly defined client group. 4. Continued effort to match treatment to relationship dynamics rather than to presenting complaints--e.g., match treatment to system rather than to symptom. 5. Investigation of the generalizability of treatment approaches to different settings. 6. Investigation of the generalization of treatment effects from the marital to parent-child subsystems and vice versa. PROMISING TRENDS AND