The goal of this research is to examine the long-term outcome of two treatments for marital discord: Traditional Behavioral Couple Therapy (TBCT) and Integrative Behavioral Couple Therapy (IBCT). The emphasis in TBCT is on making positive changes in the relationship by teaching couples better communication and problem solving strategies and by having spouses identify and increase positive behavior toward each other. In contrast, IBCT emphasizes emotional understanding and acceptance of the other. IBCT includes strategies from TBCT but focuses less on deliberate, structured change and more on changes that emerge from greater empathy and understanding between partners. Currently, a clinical trial comparing the two treatments at termination and over two years of follow-up is being completed. However, existing research suggests a high level of separation (38%) in TBCT four years after treatment. Therefore, a primary aim of the current application is to follow couples for two additional years and compare outcomes four years after treatment termination. Our study will focus not just on marital outcomes, such as relationship stability and satisfaction, but will also focus on individual outcomes, such as psychological symptoms in spouses and adjustment in their children.
Other aims of the project are to examine observed interactions between spouses during follow-up, to examine therapy process (videotaped observations of therapy sessions) across the two treatments and relate this observed process to outcome, to examine the impact of marital therapy on depression (and the impact of depression treatment on marital satisfaction), and to examine the mediators of marital treatment. Couple therapy is an effective treatment for marital problems, which in turn may improve the mental and physical health of spouses and any children they have. The currently proposed study will add substantially to our knowledge of couple therapy by providing data on its long-term outcome, process, and mechanism of change.
| Christensen, Andrew; Doss, Brian D (2017) Integrative Behavioral Couple Therapy. Curr Opin Psychol 13:111-114 |
| Crenshaw, Alexander O; Christensen, Andrew; Baucom, Donald H et al. (2017) Revised scoring and improved reliability for the Communication Patterns Questionnaire. Psychol Assess 29:913-925 |
| Baucom, Katherine J W; Baucom, Brian R; Christensen, Andrew (2015) Changes in dyadic communication during and after integrative and traditional behavioral couple therapy. Behav Res Ther 65:18-28 |
| Baucom, Brian R; Atkins, David C; Rowe, Lorelei Simpson et al. (2015) Prediction of treatment response at 5-year follow-up in a randomized clinical trial of behaviorally based couple therapies. J Consult Clin Psychol 83:103-14 |
| Baucom, Brian R; Sheng, Elisa; Christensen, Andrew et al. (2015) Behaviorally-based couple therapies reduce emotional arousal during couple conflict. Behav Res Ther 72:49-55 |
| Benson, Lisa A; Sevier, Mia; Christensen, Andrew (2013) The impact of behavioral couple therapy on attachment in distressed couples. J Marital Fam Ther 39:407-20 |
| Baucom, Katherine J W; Baucom, Brian R; Christensen, Andrew (2012) Do the naïve know best? The predictive power of naïve ratings of couple interactions. Psychol Assess 24:983-94 |
| Atkins, David C; Rubin, Timothy N; Steyvers, Mark et al. (2012) Topic models: a novel method for modeling couple and family text data. J Fam Psychol 26:816-27 |
| Baucom, Katherine J W; Sevier, Mia; Eldridge, Kathleen A et al. (2011) Observed communication in couples two years after integrative and traditional behavioral couple therapy: outcome and link with five-year follow-up. J Consult Clin Psychol 79:565-76 |
| Baucom, Brian R; Atkins, David C; Eldridge, Kathleen et al. (2011) The language of demand/withdraw: verbal and vocal expression in dyadic interactions. J Fam Psychol 25:570-80 |
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