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Toward Mutual Support: A Task Analysis of the Relational Justice Approach to Infidelity
Author(s) -
Williams Kirstee,
Galick Aimee,
KnudsonMartin Carmen,
Huenergardt Douglas
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
journal of marital and family therapy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.868
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1752-0606
pISSN - 0194-472X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1752-0606.2012.00324.x
Subject(s) - attunement , psychology , task (project management) , power (physics) , social psychology , economic justice , political science , medicine , physics , alternative medicine , management , pathology , quantum mechanics , law , economics
Gender, culture, and power issues are intrinsic to the etiology of infidelity, but the clinical literature offers little guidance on how to work with these concerns. The Relational Justice Approach ( RJA ) to infidelity (Williams, Family Process, 2011, 50, 516) uniquely places gender and power issues at the heart of clinical change; however, this approach has not been systematically studied. Therefore a qualitative task analysis was utilized to understand how change occurs in RJA . The findings indicated four necessary tasks: (a) creating an equitable foundation for healing, (b) creating space for alternate gender discourse, (c) pursuing relational responsibility of powerful partner, and (d) new experience of mutual support. Therapists' attention to power dynamics that organize couple relationships, leadership in intervening in power processes, and socio‐cultural attunement to gender discourses were foundational to this work. These findings help clarify the processes by which mutual healing from the trauma of infidelity may occur and offer empirically based actions that therapists can take to facilitate mutual support.