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Couple therapy with combat veterans and their partners
Author(s) -
Erbes Christopher R.,
Polusny Melissa A.,
MacDermid Shelley,
Compton Jill S.
Publication year - 2008
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.20521
Subject(s) - psychology , interpersonal communication , experiential avoidance , context (archaeology) , distress , psychotherapist , population , service member , interpersonal relationship , anxiety , military personnel , clinical psychology , social psychology , psychiatry , medicine , paleontology , environmental health , political science , law , biology
Service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan face psychological challenges that can exert profound effects on families and couples, but can also be treated within a systemic context. Couple therapy offers a means of increasing social support, decreasing interpersonal conflict, and addressing the experiential avoidance that maintains posttraumatic symptoms. For combat veterans and their partners, we present an adaptation of integrative behavioral couple therapy (IBCT) that reduces conflict and encourages intimacy through acceptance and skills strategies. By doing so, IBCT exposes service members in couple therapy to emotions, interpersonal situations, and activities that facilitate recovery from combat‐related distress. We illustrate common presenting problems in this population and the utilization of IBCT with a case example. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol: In Session 64:1‐12, 2008.