Journal of marital and family therapy最新文献

Despite collective conversations about the need for more racial diversity, the field of couple/marriage and family therapy (C/MFT) continues to be occupied predominantly by White individuals. Within the C/MFT literature, several scholar–practitioners have highlighted what the lack of racial representation means for our profession and, more importantly, our clients. C/MFT scholars have also shed light on the distinctive experiences of racially minoritized students and therapists traversing a racially homogeneous discipline. However, a smaller, and often overlooked, demographic in these conversations is supervisors of color. This modified Delphi study enlisted the expert perspectives of eight supervisors of color who each have at least a decade of supervisory experience. Consensus among the panelists emphasized the unique, but often inadequate training needs for supervisors of color and the sociocultural factors that often affect the supervisory relationship. This study provides implications that are critical to fostering the professional development of systemic supervisors of color.

Intergenerational family conflict is a commonly identified issue in the Asian diaspora; however, there are limited interventions designed to address this concern. Given this gap in the literature, the authors present a practice article outlining the conceptualization, development, and delivery of a dyadic life review intervention called (Re)Cultivating Family Stories (RFS). RFS is a clinician-facilitated family intervention designed to promote connection and foster successive communication through the joint activity of developing a family story. Life review is a structured approach for reminiscing and evaluating one's life experiences and includes dyadic variants. RFS builds on dyadic life review by facilitating collaborative dialogs between a parent and adult offspring, incorporating culturally responsive elements, and focusing on developing family stories. This article provides an overview of the intervention and its theoretical foundations, along with formative feedback from a field test. Considerations for future implementation and research directions are described.

Telehealth is a promising means for expanding access to mental health treatment. Yet, more research is needed to ensure that telehealth service delivery is no less effective than in-person treatment in real-world service delivery contexts. In the current study, we compared telehealth delivery of the GenerationPMTO parenting intervention to in-person delivery in the context of the public mental health system. Using a noninferiority approach with a sample of n = 1452 caregivers, we found telehealth delivery to be noninferior to in-person delivery on all caregiver outcomes: parenting practices, parenting confidence, and caregiver depressive symptoms. We were unable to conclude that telehealth delivery was noninferior to in-person delivery for child behavior problems. Our findings add to the literature suggesting the utility of using telehealth to provide services to families—particularly for delivering evidence-based parenting interventions to enhance caregiver outcomes. Implications for couple and family therapy are discussed.

Tracking therapeutic processes and outcomes session to session, known as feedback-informed treatment (FIT), has shown many significant benefits for systemic family therapists. However, more clinically useful FIT measures are needed in our field. In response, we conceptualize core dimensions of the therapeutic change process and propose a measure—the Change Process Questionnaire (CPQ)—based on some of those dimensions to provide a clinically useful FIT measure. Developed as a 25-item measure, this study evaluated the measure's psychometric properties, resulting in a refined version with 18 items organized into four subscales (client relationships, client well-being, therapist regard, and therapeutic effect) that demonstrate some alignment with core dimensions of the change process. In this article, we provide a preliminary overview of the CPQ's psychometric validity and potential to contribute to the therapeutic change process and its accompanying scholarly literature.

Chapman's claim that the key to marital happiness is “speaking” your partner's primary “love language” has been highly influential in pop culture and incorporated into therapeutic practice. However, the theory has not yet been empirically validated. The current study tests his theory, examining the hypothesis that satisfaction with one's partner's primary love language behavior predicts relationship satisfaction better than satisfaction with one's partner's nonprimary love language behavior. We recruited a sample (n = 696, M = 43.8 years, 70% married, 97.3% cohabitating) through Amazon CloudResearch. Chapman's hypothesis was not supported. Participants' satisfaction with their partners' primary love language behavior no better-predicted relationship satisfaction or perceived love than the lower-ranked love languages. Words of Affirmation and Quality Time better predicted perceived love and relationship satisfaction than participants' primary love language. These results replicate previous research and suggest that these should remain targets of intervention for relationship therapists.

This study explores whether marital quality mediates the effects of a parenting intervention on preschoolers' conduct problems and effortful control. Using data from 209 children in a two-wave randomized controlled trial of the Hitkashrut program, participants were assigned to either a 14-session co-parent training group or a minimal intervention control group. Intent-to-treat analysis revealed that improvements in marital quality significantly mediated the intervention's impact on both conduct problems and effortful control. An alternative model, which hypothesized that changes in child behavior would lead to improvements in marital quality, was not supported, reinforcing the importance of targeting marital dynamics to achieve better child outcomes. These findings highlight the potential of marital-focused strategies within parenting interventions to foster healthier family environments and improve long-term developmental trajectories in children.

Providing therapy to families of separation and divorce can be a challenging area of practice for marriage and family therapists, particularly when a child refuses contact with a parent. Several forms of “reunification therapy” designed to overcome resist/refuse dynamics between a child and parent have been proposed, with significant variation across the conceptualization of factors contributing to parent–child contact problems and the resulting treatment models that have been described. In an effort to design an overarching integrative framework for conducting family reunification therapy that is informed by available evidence, a review of the current literature is conducted. Following this review, an integrative single-therapist framework for resolving parent–child contact problems is presented. Over the course of three successive treatment “stages,” this framework permits a marriage and family therapist to conduct reunification therapy in an evidence-informed manner along general systemic therapeutic principles while permitting flexibility with respect to the specific interventions selected.

This pilot study examined predictors of change in relationship distress and depressive symptoms over the course of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) in a one-arm, pragmatic clinical trial of 17 couples in Taiwan. Results revealed that masculine ideology, feminine ideology, traditionalism, and emotional expressivity at intake predicted change in relationship distress. Specifically, women's high traditional gender roles and traditionalism and both partners' high emotional expressivity at intake were associated with decreases in relationship distress over time. In addition, attachment and emotional expressivity predicted change in depressive symptoms. Specifically, high attachment avoidance, high attachment anxiety, and high emotional expressivity at intake were associated with decreases in depressive symptoms over time. While more research is needed, these findings offer preliminary support for the types of partners who may experience more improvement after receiving EFT in Taiwan.

Tom Andersen's reflecting team approach invited family members to hear the dialogues between professionals in response to their stories. This study aimed to explore intersubjective reflexivity during reflecting team group supervision, by observing resonances between group members. Twelve hours of reflecting team group supervision was transcribed and analyzed using Systemic Functional Linguistics. Hallidayan transitivity analysis of selected sections of interaction focused on mental processes, and Martin and White's appraisal framework was used to explore the “engagement” between different voices at play in the conversations. We found the use of physical metaphor to express reflective experiences, multi-voiced expressions to expand perspectives and possibilities, and dialogical patterns of relating between group therapy participants. Understanding dialogism from a linguistic perspective may offer insights into how reflective dialogues work and support understanding of fidelity for approaches which engage reflecting teams.

Little is known about the individual factors that potentiate communication conflict in romantic relationships. This study examined the main and interactive effects of two types of emotion regulation in 1240 couples enrolled in an online relationship intervention. Results revealed that higher levels of actors' communication conflict were associated with actors' greater negative urgency and lower cognitive reappraisal. Furthermore, actors' cognitive reappraisal acted as an inhibitor of communication conflict, but only for actors with low levels of negative urgency. Partner effects on perceived actor conflict followed a similar pattern. There was no evidence that the emotion regulation of one partner moderated the effect of the emotion regulation of the other. These results highlight the importance of considering the contribution of couples' emotion regulation in the etiology of their communication conflict and selecting interventions that best match their emotion regulation needs.