Marriage Enrichment and Prevention Really Works: Interpersonal Competence Training to Maintain and Enhance Relationships

Abstract

Marriage Enrichment and Prevention Really Works: Interpersonal Competence Training to Maintain and Enhance Relationships* Developing Research Based Programs for Practitioners Marriage and family practitioners need to develop skill-based prevention programs and interventions based on systematic research. This will allow us to evaluate why and under circumstances prevention and intervention works. Long, Angera, Jacobs-Carter, Nakamoto, and Kalso (1999) and Morris, Cooper, and Gross (1999) make two important additions to marriage enrichment and education literature in this issue of Family Relations. Long et al. (1999) focus on effectiveness of training couples in romantic relationships to develop and maintain empathy. Morris et al. (1999) address critical issues related to marketing factors that contribute to both participation and levels of satisfaction for participants in marriage education programs. A Challenge to Efficacy of Skills Training We believe that greatest hope for helping couples achieve satisfying marriages they want lies in prevention programs and strength-based therapy programs. This belief is based upon over 28 years of personal experience as marriage and family therapists, as a leader couple in marriage enrichment, as researchers studying marital quality, and as marriage partners. The Long et al. (1999) and Morris et al. (1999) studies share our presumption that skills training works. As we reflected upon and discussed these articles in preparation for writing this essay, our discussion kept returning to a recent article by Gottman, Coan, Carre:re, and Swanson ( 1998) that challenges this presumption. The arguments by Gottman et al. (1998) are directed at marital therapy but are easily extended to marriage enrichment and marriage education programs. They suggest that the active listening or validation (p. 20) needs to be abandoned because intervention needs to be based upon what real couples (p. 5) and because couples they have studied rarely used components of this model (p.17). As you might guess, this article has created a firestorm of controversy and is actively being debated and challenged by marriage and family therapists and marriage and family enrichment leaders who use skill-oriented training programs. The value and validity of research such as that presented in Long et al. (1999) and Morris et al. (1999) articles will be in doubt until we resolve broader issues raised by Gottman et al. ( 1998) that bring into question very foundation of prevention field. Therefore, we would like to take this opportunity to discuss some of issues raised by Gottman et al. (1998). As researchers who also focus on happy, stable marriages, we are tempted to discuss Gottman et al. (1998) article in terms of conceptual clarity, measurement, design, and analysis as they relate to development and testing of theory. But we will save this focus for another article, since our task in this essay is to examine some of questions article raises for us as practitioners. Because of space limitations, we would like to examine four questions in this essay. First, should we abandon all interventions related to active listening that we've used in past with success in therapy, enrichment and in our own marriage? We agree that research with couples who have happy, stable relationships is vital for learning how to help couples in dysfunctional relationships. Does finding, through research, that average couples do not naturally use a particular communication skill mean that it should be abandoned? Second, how are Gottman et al. (1998) assumptions about active listening similar to and different from our assumptions about active listening? Third, evidence do we have from research literature that active listening and other enrichment approaches are effective? Fourth, are research needs we have as practitioners? …