Presents a theoretical approach with some practical strategies for resolving marital and family conflicts. The steps are: owning one's position, understanding the other person's position, and resolving the conflict. The method serves as a model resulting in the development of more effective communicators and communication patterns. (Author/BEF)

Describes the Marriage Contract Game, designed to help couples negotiate relationship and task problems in an explicit, rational manner. Discusses the game's conceptual ties to modes of behavioral family intervention and to the social psychology of bargaining. Concludes with an example of the game's application to a distressed couple. (Author/JAC)

To determine if empirically derived dependent variables could differentiate typical conflict and accord discussions, couples engaged in conflict and accord discussions on topics rated prior to and following discussions. Discriminators were volume, criticism, disagreement and sarcasm. Variables which did not differentaite topics were swearing, rate…