The social learning approach to marital and family therapy is a didactic approach calling for an active and directive therapist and a collaborative client. To examine the variability of therapist and client behaviors within sessions and across the course of treatment, 24 families, in marital and family therapy, participated in the study. Families…

The counselor, in working with troubled families, must help couples realize that they may be dealing with each other as narcissistic projections or as people from the past. (Author)

Before a new autonomous profession can be established a national definition of marriage counseling must be recognized. This report is an attempt to define "marriage counseling" by presenting a brief history and by describing four sources of definitions of this profession. These sources define marriage counseling as an autonomous profession, as a…

Article discusses many factors influencing modern marriages, and some of the current approaches to marriage counseling for Black couples. Some theoretical orientations, therapies, and crisis situations are mentioned. A significant need of the field is clarification of the legitimate limitations and roles of marriage counseling. (Author/SMR)

Describes the importance of a good working relationship between lawyers and divorce counselors. Discusses the lawyer's and counselor's roles in terms of predivorce therapy, confidentiality settlement and litigation, and the post-litigation period. A cooperative interdisciplinary approach can help divorcing spouses and their children adjust. (JAC)

Hierarchical incongruities in a marriage can occur when a spouse develops a symptom in an attempt to balance the division of power in the couple. The therapist must organize the couple so that the division of power is balanced, and the couple is organized in a congruous hierarchy. (Author)

If counselors can stretch themselves further to reach into the community to share knowledge with other institutions and can together set up programs to inspire greater self-esteem and self-respect, they might be able to significantly reduce the divorce rate by raising the status of singlehood. (Author)

Through a national survey of marriage and family therapists, this study examines what therapists do when their HIV-positive clients disclose that they are engaging in high-risk sexual behavior. Participants (N=309) were more likely to break confidence when their clients were male, young, gay, or African American. Describes characteristic of…

The relationship between testing and counseling has been called "the marriage that failed." This article presents a form of marriage counseling, that is, a mode of test interpretation, that may assist counselors to utilize test results more effectively in counseling. (Author)

One of the foremost tasks of young people contemplating marriage is the discovery of their basic selfhood and their continued growth as people; this is the first goal in pre-marital counseliling. (Author)

Proposes that key to effective case transfer is the departing therapist's ability to assume role of "translator" in a four-phase process of information-sharing which includes: preparing clients for termination and transfer, orienting clients and incoming therapist with one another, bringing clients and incoming therapist together, and facilitating…

Surrogate motherhood is a path to parenthood filled with legal "potholes" and psychological "rocks." Mental health specialists, especially marital and family therapists, may well be called upon to provide their professional services to people attempting to negotiate it. Introduces a number of potential hazards, presenting the…

Discusses treatment issues in conjoint marital therapy, currently accepted as the preferred format for treating marital difficulties. Describes the use of linear or paradoxical letters to the nonattending spouse, providing research data regarding potential hazards of one-spouse therapy. Sample letters are included. (JAC)

While it is commonly assumed that marital therapists define their tasks as preserving marriages, most traditionally trained marriage therapists espouse a more neutral role: that is, facilitating a constructive resolution to the marital problem, whether or not that resolution ends up entailing divorce. Despite this professed ideal of neutrality, it…