Reviews three primary ways in which law enforcement can affect relationships (organizational influences, peer/socialization influences, and police role influences). Identifies some common difficulties encountered by law enforcement couples and provides some basic goals and strategies for engaging them in treatment and addressing these issues in…

Discusses history of first training program in Marriage and Family Counseling (MFC) at Hofstra University established in 1982. Explains context of MFC graduate programs and philosophy and model of MFC programs. Describes Marriage and Family Counseling Club, mentoring program, Marriage and Family Counseling Newsletter, and marriage and family…

Examined African-American participation in marriage and family therapy (MFT) academic programs. Collected data from 25 program directors and from 15 African-American students. Results indicated that African-American students and faculty were glaringly underrepresented in MFT master's and doctoral programs. Less than 1% of all MFT master's degree…

Author subjectively compares experiences in medical school, psychiatric residency training, and an American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy accredited doctoral program in marriage and family therapy. Discusses differences and similarities between two programs. Proposes that primary objective of professional training is to learn to…

Describes and evaluates text focusing on assisting heterosexual couples to improve communication skills. Author perspective is primarily behavioral and cognitive behavioral research and practice. Suggests that material is well presented and ideally suited for beginners whereas solid research base will appeal to professionals. Includes structured…

Describes how family sculpting, grounded in Experiential Family Counseling, can be used as a training technique in marriage and family counselor training programs. Provides detailed guidelines for conducting family sculpting. A case study is included. (Author/NB)

Compared combined 4-session communication skills training and 8-session Emotionally Focused couples therapy (EFT) to 12 sessions of EFT and to wait-list control. Both treatments achieved superior gains at posttest compared to control group on measures of marital adjustment and target complaint improvement (but not on intimacy and passionate love),…

Examined generalization of behavioral marital therapy (BMT) and enhanced behavioral marital therapy (EBMT), which added cognitive restructuring, affection exploration, and generalization training to BMT. Both techniques were effective in decreasing negative communication behaviors and cognitions across settings for couples (n=26), but there was…

Examined four- and five-year follow-up data from evaluation of effects of Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program, marital distress prevention program which teaches couples effective communication and conflict management skills. At five-year follow-up, intervention, as compared with control, couples had higher levels of positive and lower…

A counselor describes feelings and attitudes of two young adults who see their marital problems as having begun with the birth of their severely disabled child. Counseling led to improved communication, better coping, and shared planning for the future. (DB)

Conducted meta-analysis of 163 randomized trials to examine differences in outcome associated with different theoretical orientations, differences between marital and family therapies versus individual therapies, clinical significance of therapy outcome, differences between marital versus family therapies in both outcomes and problems treated, and…

Reviews literature on complex ethical and legal issues that may arise in counseling families (defining the client, welfare and rights of individuals versus those of family system, informed consent and manipulative therapeutic techniques, family members who refuse to participate, confidentiality, and family values). Concludes with specific…

This study began validation of the Family Profile Form, constructed to link evaluation of couples and families with specific structured enrichment exercises. Reliability and validity with different samples of participants were found to be within acceptable limits of statistical significance. (Author/MKA)

Examines the American Association for Marital and Family Therapy's Code of Ethics to explore ways in which marriage and family therapists can provide services within the framework of existing ethical principles and standards for accountability and professionalism to families with an adolescent child experiencing same-sex attraction. (Author/MKA)

Contextual and essential explorations of how couples' interactions are gendered were compared by examining the relationship between demanding and withdrawing within couples and the partners' involvements outside the couple. Results showed that wives were more often in the demanding/pursuing role than their husbands and that this pattern was…