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Behavioral Marriage Therapy: II. Empirical Perspective
Author(s) -
GURMAN ALAN S.,
KNISKERN DAVID P.
Publication year - 1978
Publication title -
family process
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.011
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1545-5300
pISSN - 0014-7370
DOI - 10.1111/j.1545-5300.1978.00139.x
Subject(s) - marital therapy , perspective (graphical) , context (archaeology) , psychology , sex therapy , psychotherapist , family therapy , empirical research , behavioral therapy , clinical psychology , psychiatry , epistemology , paleontology , philosophy , artificial intelligence , sexual dysfunction , computer science , biology
Two recent published reviews of research on behavioral marriage therapy stimulated us to supplement these accounts with additional relevant data. First, we place research on behavioral couples therapy in the broader context of outcome research on nonbehavioral marital therapy. We then summarize the results of 23 studies of behavioral couples therapy not included in these previous reviews and conclude that these additional data on controlled and comparative studies do little to enhance the current empirical status of the efficacy of behavioral marriage therapy and in no case do they establish the superiority of social learning approaches. It is concluded that an open mind to all sources of data on the efficacy of marital therapy is needed if the field is to make meaningful advances.