Are 50% of couples entering couples therapy just to find out if it’s worth staying?
Thursday, January 11, 2024.
Many humans enter couples therapy seeking to improve their communication. They also often mention repairing or increasing trust, and, of course, enhancing intimacy.
Pre-COVID research has revealed that nearly 50% of couples who enter couples therapy do so with the goal of determining if the relationship is viable enough to continue.
What I admire about this study is that while there’s a sh*tload of research correlating how therapy goals influence outcome, little attention has been given to the relationship between relationship survivability goals and outcomes in couples therapy.
Researcher Jesse Owen, Now with the University of Denver, was once with the Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology at the University of Louisville.
While he was there in 2012, he and his team conducted a study that specifically noted at how treatment goals expressed at the onset of couples therapy shaped the eventual clinical outcome, especially with relationship maintenance.
How the study was conducted
These researchers compiled data from 249 couples being treated by various therapists of dubious skill.
Owen’s team reviewed the goals of improving the relationship, as compared to the goals of clarifying the relationship’s vitality, or even searching for a pulse, for that matter.
Owen’s researchers paid particular attention to the intake paperwork. They were looking for stated, clinical goals.
Owen discovered that the study subjects who had a goal of improvement had better outcomes than those who sought clarification.
Looking for helpful interventions…
Specifically, couples who entered therapy motivated to build skills to improve the relationship, were nearly 80% more likely to be together six months after treatment than the couples who entered therapy wanting to know if they should separate or not.
More than half of the couples who wanted clarification at the beginning of therapy had split up six months later.
Final Thoughts…
I wonder if John Gottman is amused when independent researchers confirm not only his findings but also the existential realities of high-end, science-based couples therapies.
Owen believes that the results of this study underscore the essential importance of goal assessment, both for the relationship and for the humans in it.
Science-based couples therapies are the gold standard of marriage care…
This research confirms the importance of choosing your therapist wisely. Your couples therapist has a profound and compelling influence on the outcome of your work together.
It’s your therapist’s essential, initial task, that, even while noting when a couple’s primary goal is relationship clarification, (especially with children involved), to reveal alternatives predicated on any available hope or encouragement.
The re-evaluation of goals throughout treatment is essential to achieve a positive outcome, even if that outcome is the conscious ending of the relationship.
Owen’s research also obliquely references the assessment all couples therapists undertake.. is this a Couples Therapy case.. or a case of Discernment Counseling?
Dr. Owen had this to say about his Gottman-confirming research:
“The complex intersection of varied hopes, goals, and expectations, occurring often within an emotionally charged atmosphere, requires that clinicians ‘dance’ simultaneously with different partners…determining and tracking goals from the outset appears likely to help ensure that the therapist does not step on too many feet too often.”
Dr.Owen might be describing mediocre couples therapy here. Science-based couples therapy starts with a 5-7 hour clinical assessment.
We don’t try to dance if we can’t call the tune…
I don’t track goals. I ask what they are.
I’m not cajoling or persuading out of the gate either..that’s the best way to step on someone’s toes.
Science-based couples therapy is more of an Occam’s Razor approach than the exhausting tap dance described above.
A couple must have a shared, common agenda if they’re going to undertake couples therapy. And those humans who enter therapy looking to build skills are already halfway there.
However, Owen did not need good couples therapists to render this research worthwhile. Couples therapists who are science-based already understand the criticality of commitment to a shared agenda.
Be well, stay kind and Godspeed.
REFERENCES:
Owen, J., Duncan, B., Anker, M., Sparks, J. (2012, February 13). Initial Relationship Goal and Couple Therapy Outcomes at Post and Six-Month Follow-Up. Journal of Family Psychology. Advanced online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0026998
