Premium
The multidimensional and developmental nature of infidelity: Practical applications
Author(s) -
Allen Elizabeth S.,
Atkins David C.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.124
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1097-4679
pISSN - 0021-9762
DOI - 10.1002/jclp.20187
Subject(s) - psychology , context (archaeology) , session (web analytics) , affect (linguistics) , task (project management) , social psychology , developmental psychology , psychotherapist , cognitive psychology , communication , computer science , paleontology , management , economics , biology , world wide web
When a partner has been unfaithful, an important therapeutic task is to assess factors that contributed to the affair and that may affect the individual's and couple's healing. This article provides a framework to assess multiple factors and their influence on an affair over time, as well as on responses to an affair. We address factors related to the person involved in an affair, his or her partner, their relationship, and the external context. These factors are considered across six phases of an affair: predisposition, approach, initial involvement, maintenance, disclosure or discovery, and response. A case study is presented to illustrate the usefulness of the framework in working with couples in which there has been an affair. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol/In Session 61: 1371–1382, 2005.