Couple Power Therapy: Building Commitment, Cooperation, Communication, And Community in Relationships (Psychologists in Independent Practice)

Couple Power Therapy Psychologists in Independent Practice Leon VandeCreek, Series Editor Treating Patients With Alco...

Author: Peter L. Sheras | Phyllis R. Koch-Sheras

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Couple Power Therapy

Psychologists in Independent Practice Leon VandeCreek, Series Editor

Treating Patients With Alcohol and Other Drug Problems: An Integrated Approach Robert D. Margolis and Joan E. Zweben Treating Patients With Memories of Abuse: Legal Risk Management Samuel J. Knapp and Leon VandeCreek Treating People With Chronic Disease: A Psychological Guide Carol D. Goodheart and Martha H. Lansing

Michal J. Murphy, Series Editor Treating Patients With Neuropsychological Disorders: A Clinician's Guide to Assessment and Referral Jeffery B. Allen Couple Power Therapy: Building Commitment, Cooperation, Communication, and Community in Relationships Peter L. Sheras and Phyllis R. Koch-Sheras

Couple Power Therapy Building Commitment, Cooperation, Communication, and Community in Relationships

Peter L. Sheras and

Phyllis R. Koch-Sheras

AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION WASHINGTON, DC

Copyright © 2006 by the American Psychological Association. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, including, but not limited to, the process of scanning and digitization, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published by American Psychological Association 750 First Street, NE Washington, DC 20002 www.apa.org To order APA Order Department P.O. Box 92984 Washington, DC 20090-2984 Tel: (800) 374-2721 Direct: (202) 336-5510 Fax: (202) 336-5502 TDD/TTY: (202) 336-6123 Online: www.apa.org/books/ E-mail: [email protected]

In the U.K., Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, copies may be ordered from American Psychological Association 3 Henrietta Street Covent Garden, London WC2E 8LU England

Typeset in Palatino by World Composition Services, Inc., Sterling, VA Printer: Book-mart Press, Inc., North Bergen, NJ Cover Designer: Minker Design, Bethesda, MD Technical/Production Editors: Gail B. Munroe and Tiffany L. Klaff The opinions and statements published are the responsibility of the authors, and such opinions and statements do not necessarily represent the policies of the American Psychological Association. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sheras, Peter L. Couple power therapy : building commitment, cooperation, communication, and community in relationships / Peter L. Sheras and Phyllis R. Koch-Sheras.—1st ed. p. cm.—(Psychologists in independent practice) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-59147-235-0 (alk. paper) 1. Marital psychotherapy. I. Koch-Sheras, Phyllis R. II. Title. III. Series. RC488.5.S489 2005 616.89'1562—dc22 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A CIP record is available from the British Library. Printed in the United States of America First Edition

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Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS INTRODUCTION PART I. A NEW PARADIGM FOR RELATIONSHIPS: COUPLE AS AN ENTITY

vii 3 17

Chapter 1

Redefining Couple: Shifting the Paradigm .... 19

Chapter 2

The Cocreating Couple: A New Possibility

PART II.

41

THE TASKS OF THE COCREATING COUPLE: THE FOUR Cs 61

Chapter 3

Commitment

63

Chapter 4

Cooperation

97

Chapter 5

Communication

119

Chapter 6

Community

151

PART III.

PUTTING THE MODEL INTO PRACTICE

Chapter 7 Chapter 8

171

Obstacles Along the Way: Challenges for Clients and Therapists

173

Creating a New Future for Couples: Expanding Couple Consciousness

213

REFERENCES

229

INDEX

239

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

255

Acknowledgments We have been together for many years as a couple, family, and therapy team. This book is the culmination of decades of thought, work, and experience together. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to our professors, supervisors, mentors, clients, and family members for their insight, support, and nurturance throughout the years. They are too numerous to mention by name here. However, among those who have truly changed us are our mentors at the VA Medical Center in Palo Alto, California—Elizabeth Richards, MD; Jay Mann, PhD; Sheldon Starr, PhD; and our great friends and collaborators from Couples Coaching CouplesHugo and Vialla Mendez and Kate Husband and Doug Ferguson. With these kindred souls, we have worked, played, and created together. Special thanks also to Michael Murphy for helping us shape this manuscript and keep our eyes on the prize.

Couple Power Therapy

Introduction ax and Mary arrive at your office for the first session, M spending most of the time interrupting each other. Married only a few years, they can't seem to get along. They are perfectly nice and reasonable individually, but it is almost like they enjoy hurting each other. They tell their stories to you and want you to mediate. Louise and Bart say they love each other but are "just too different" to be married. He wants kids and a wife who works part-time. She wants a career and full-time childcare. They ask your opinion as to what is the right thing for them to do. Danny has just told his wife Janine that he has been having an affair. They say they have been happily married for the past 15 years and love their two beautiful children. He seems sorry, but Janine seems unwilling to continue their marriage. She is upset, hurt, and distraught. Danny wants you to make it better for them. These are common scenarios presented in couples therapists' offices every day. Never have couples been more in need of support. Never have psychotherapists been more in need of effective techniques for helping couples. Whereas the general efficacy of couples therapies for improving relationship satisfaction has been empirically validated (Baucom, Shoham, Mueser, Daiuto, & Stickle, 1998; Christenson & Heavey, 1999; Jacobson & Addis, 1993), nothing to date has really been able to turn the tide from separation and divorce to lasting and fulfilling relationships. Though divorce has been predicted reliably (Gottman, 1994), the creation or maintenance of marital satisfaction is yet to be predicted or even addressed with the same precision. Even in the most empirically supported marital treatment, traditional behavioral couple therapy (TBCT), at least one third of the couples were treatment failures and among those improving, many, over the course of 2 years, did not maintain improvement (Jacobson, Christensen,

4

COUPLE POWER THERAPY

Prince, Cordova, & Eldridge, 2000). In another study, by the end of 4 years posttreatment, the divorce rate among couples in TBCT was 38% (Christensen, Atkins, Berns, Wheeler, Baucom, & Simpson, 2004). Today there are fewer marriages annually in the United States, and rates of divorce are between 50% and 60% (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2004). It has been estimated that 50% of first marriages will end in divorce, and the rates for second marriages are even higher (Bramlett & Mosher, 2001). Nearly 20 million children under the age of 18 (28%) live in single-parent households (U.S. Census Bureau, 2002). As couples therapists, we have been acutely aware of the dire state of marriage and relationships. Over the past 20 years, we have developed a technique we call couple power therapy (CPT) that has successfully helped couples. It is based on a relatively simple paradigm shift that may, however, involve overcoming significant obstacles inherent in the current perspective about relationships. This perspective is generated by a society that has been built on the premise of individualism and competition— and that paradigm is becoming even more and more prevalent. An individualistic approach does not work well for relationships; however, it is within this problematic cultural context that therapists have been trying to help couples create lasting bonds with each other. Couples therapy, in that context, is usually an agonizing process for both the couples and the therapists. It is possible, though, for couples therapy to be effective and fun. How to make that a reality is what we present in the following chapters. In doing couples therapy, most mental health practitioners, we believe, have missed an important point: Within a relationship matrix, there exists a powerful couple identity that goes beyond each partner's individual identity, and this couple identity can be created and nurtured. The couple power model, based on the couple as a distinct entity, respects both individual goals and joint pursuits as part of the couple identity—creating something bigger than the sum of the parts. In this model, the partners do not lose themselves in each other; rather, they go beyond the individual to acknowledge the couple entity and cocreate a unified vision for their relationship. The term cocreating refers to a

INTRODUCTION

5

flexible way of operating that allows partners to acclimate over time to personal, social, and environmental change together. Although every couple is unique, we have distinguished some basic characteristics that successful cocreating couples have in common. To develop and maintain these positive characteristics, the couple entity must address four basic tasks: commitment, cooperation, communication, and community. We call these tasks the Four Cs of couple power. The term couple power therapy, as used here, may be defined as the approach that empowers couples to see the possibility of their relationship in the present and future by addressing the four major tasks required for creating and maintaining couple. Making progress in each of these areas is necessary for a successful, resilient, and long-lasting partnership to exist over time. The success of the couple and of couples therapy is a matter of focusing on these tasks, creating a structure to accomplish them, and building in ongoing work and maintenance. The term couple power is reminiscent of social movements of the 1960s and 1970s, such as Black Power, that were striving to empower a particular group while attempting to change the prevailing cultural norms. When properly learned and applied, the Four Cs are an effective and powerful source of social and personal support for relationships. The couples therapist uses the Four Cs as the fundamental tasks to be understood and worked on with the couple in treatment. They are simple enough to be taught by the therapist and to be accomplished by almost any couple wiling to learn and practice them. A key factor in making the CPT model simple to learn and apply for both the couple and the therapist is narrowing down the treatment to four fundamental tasks, that is, the Four Cs. Solicitation of unnecessary or complicating information is eliminated, deemphasized, or postponed. Complaints from the past about one's partner or relationship, for example, are redirected into possibilities for getting clear about the couple's joint commitment, responsibility, and cooperation. This focused approach is similar to what author Malcolm Gladwell (2005) calls in his book Blink "thin-slicing," that is, "the ability of our unconscious to find patterns in situations and behavior based on very narrow slices of experience" (p. 23). Gladwell gives several

6


examples, including the research by Gottman (1994) on predictors of divorce, of the value of "throwing out all that is irrelevant while we zero in on what really matters" (p. 34): "What you avoid . .. are all the confusing and complicated and ultimately irrelevant pieces of information that can serve to screw up your judgement" (p. 37). Similarly, focusing on the Four Cs enables both the therapist and the couple more easily and faithfully to accomplish their goals of treatment. They "thin-slice" the therapeutic process. The fundamental elements of the Four Cs are consistent, and the benefits of following them have been powerful and convincing to us, our clients, and our trainees over the past 3 decades. CPT allows each individual to relate to the couple as a separate entity in itself—one built on a strong foundation of commitment, fostered by cooperation as a team, empowered by effective communication and language, and supported by a community of peers. In brief, commitment is used here to mean not a commitment to another individual, but a shared commitment to the entity of couple and what is possible for that unit. Cooperation refers to the ability to be a team working together to meet a common goal where each person does not necessarily perform the same behaviors but coordination of activity is required. Effective couple communication is the act of speaking, listening, and acting in such a way that the same meaning is understood by both parties. Finally, community is the experience of common feelings and shared goals of groups of couples living in physical or psychological proximity. We call the basic elements of the couple power model tasks, rather than solutions or techniques, because the model goes beyond things to do or learn for correcting something wrong; rather, the Four Cs provide the couple with a structure for ways of being and identifying themselves as a couple entity and living in that entity together in their lives. The tasks build on the couple's strengths to create the ongoing expression of their unique couple identity. This identity has a character and personality of its own that we refer to here as the couple entity or couple as an entity. Usually we refer to the relationship as just couple without the article a or the. The use of the term couple in this way emphasizes the importance of language in describing a relationship as a joint

INTRODUCTION

7

commitment to a way of being together, rather than a commitment to an individual or a thing. Although it may seem awkward at first, this linguistic maneuver is a reminder of the paradigm shift that we are attempting to produce in seeing couple as an entity. After a while, we find that the use of the term couple becomes second nature and that clients can easily distinguish between what is meant by couple and a couple. Both couples and therapists alike often mistakenly begin with the premise that a relationship in need of help must be corrected or fixed in some way. They have probably read a book or seen a program that defined the "right" partnership or the "perfect" mate, and they are discouraged that they cannot achieve that ideal. This is an example of the kind of obstacle the popular media creates by portraying unrealistic standards for couples to live up to. By presenting a framework of tasks for the couple to accomplish during therapy, rather than problems to fix, the therapist guides them to choose what they want to pursue. This allows the couple to focus on creating positive possibilities and visions for the future, rather than getting caught up in problems of the past. The therapist identifies and builds on the strengths and competencies that are inherent in the couple itself to help the partners reach their goals. This possibility-based perspective on couples work is consistent with strategic, structural, and narrative therapy models. It is primarily these approaches that we have drawn on in the process of developing CPT, as we discuss next. We began our work with couples armed with the traditional psychodynamic training we had each received in graduate school. Both of us received additional training in using principles of behavior modification and behavioral therapies while working with children and families in a variety of settings. We met while on our clinical psychology internship at the Veterans Administration (VA) Medical Center in Palo Alto, California, where we learned both brief strategic theories and family therapy skills. In addition to our training at the VA Family Study Unit that included techniques of fair fight training (Bach & Bernhard, 1971) and family therapy techniques of Satir (1972), we were exposed to the cutting-edge work occurring at the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto in the early 1970s. It was there and through

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supervision at the Family Study Unit at the VA that we learned the importance of looking for ways to create second-order change in couples, not merely to accept first-order solutions (Watzlawick, 1996; Watzlawick, Weakland, & Fisch, 1974). After we completed our internships, we realized that accomplishing secondorder change for couples would require a new kind of speaking and language than that which currently existed in the psychotherapy or relationship lexicon. It is fortunate that we discovered several alternative perspectives on our journey of continuous learning about relationships. First came several years of workshops at the National Training Laboratory in Maine with John and Joyce Weir (Weir, 1975). These workshops, Laboratories in Self-Differentiation, included gestalt therapy techniques and training in a language of self-responsibility called percept language used primarily with dream work. We learned to use the language of the creative unconscious when working with night dreams, fantasies, and waking daydreams or visions. The use of a new language to create the vision and commitment of a relationship eventually became the cornerstone of CPT. The power of language to create change was also reinforced by our subsequent training in both neurolinguistic programming (NLP) and narrative therapy. From NLP (Sandier & Grinder, 1979) we learned the language of representational systems, reframing, metaphors, and fairy tales. Then from narrative therapy, we further developed our understanding of how we "constitute our lives and relationships through language" (White & Epston, 1990, p. 27). These techniques and approaches helped shape the way we looked at possibilities for couples relating and communicating in new ways. Narrative therapy also helped broaden our sense of the cultural context affecting couples and how that could be used to externalize problems in the relationship. Coming to see "the problem as a separate entity" (White & Epston, 1990, p. 38) helped inform the eventual development of our concept of the couple as an entity, a crucial part of the couple power model. The concept of externalization is also integral to the tasks of cooperation and communication, when couples learn to let go of blaming each other for a problem and take on solving it together as a team.

INTRODUCTION

9

As we continued to develop our model over the years, we also acquired experience in structural family therapy theories and techniques through reading, seminars, and consultation. The technique of enactment, for instance, in which the therapist has the clients "dance in his presence" (Minuchin & Fishman, 1981, p. 79), influenced us in designing the process of creating a couple vision in the session, during which the therapist "observe(s) the family members' verbal and nonverbal ways of signaling to each other" (p. 79). The focus in structural therapy on shaping competence and emphasizing positive behaviors and strengths is also basic to CPT. A crucial part of CPT is encouraging the couple to create, adopt, and speak their vision as a positive possibility in the moment—even when they may not see it or believe it. Rather than something concrete to do or have, it is taught as a way of being for the couple to "live into." Although this way of thinking is often difficult for many people in Western society to understand, it came naturally to us in the context of our Tibetan Buddhist studies. Studying the Tibetan Dzogchen tradition helped open our minds to new possibilities of ways of relating that we were able to translate into effective therapeutic techniques, such as the couple's statement of their vision. This is consistent with the teachings of the Dalai Lama: yet with ordinary people, their experience is a very solid one of suppressing or indulging, with the result that they accumulate karmic formations and fall prey to attachment and aggression. On the other hand, for a Dzogchen yogin, thoughts are liberated the moment they arise. (2000, p. 83)

What developed for us from our experience and training, as well as from our years of working together and being a couple ourselves, can be said to have evolved and integrated naturally over time. We became students of the relationship process, saw clients, worked with groups, consulted, coached, taught, and worked on it together in our own relationship through a variety of means, including a process called Couples Coaching Couples that we describe later in detail (see chap. 6, this volume). We

10


interviewed couples, treated them, observed them, and learned from them—from our years at the VA until now, a period of nearly 3 decades. We developed the CPT model on the basis of the merits of each approach we studied and what seemed to be problematic or missing from each one. For instance, in much of our training we were encouraged to start treatment by teaching couples good communications skills. When we did this, however, we noticed that they often used these skills to communicate clearly their unfulfilled needs and what they disliked about each other and the relationship. This seemed only to reinforce the hopelessness of their circumstances and allowed them to be honest but unhappy. Gottman (1994) has examined this common occurrence, demonstrating empirically that couples with poor communication are more likely to divorce. This research, although scientifically valuable, raises more questions. What seems to be missing is a foundational element. Did the partners really want to be together or could they even imagine a future with each other? If they could not, what good was clear communication that might be hurtful or retaliatory? Oddly enough, it became clear to us that it was often too early in treatment to encourage clients to be brutally clear and honest. Although clear communication was obviously important, there appeared to be a sequence in which certain things needed to be accomplished. The foundation needed to be laid before other skills would be useful. If clear communication was a tool in the relationship toolbox, what were we actually using the tools to build? A hammer is not much good unless one knows not only how to use it but also when and toward what end. Is there a plan or blueprint for what is being constructed? To be successful in the end, one must first have a project to work on and a commitment to build it. In this case, the project is the relationship, and the commitment is to the couple as an entity. The importance of commitment became clear to us following a number of interviews we conducted 20 years after completing our internship. We asked a number of our supervisors what they had learned about couples over the past two decades. The former director of the Family Study Unit where we trained summed up the sentiments of most of our mentors. He reported that couples

INTRODUCTION

11

with great longevity had long since come to grips with their differences, and even with the fact that they didn't like each other sometimes. What looked like acceptance or selective inattention at first was really something more. It was a belief in the institution of marriage and their commitment to it. After a while, it was clear to them that they would stay married. Given that circumstance, the couple would have to take on the difficulties, differences, and individual problems together. The relationship was the entity to which they were committed after all those years, not just the other person. We began to understand that the commitment to the entity was the primary requisite for a lasting relationship. From our experiences and research, we concluded that the basis for effective couples therapy and for the establishment and maintenance of a successful couple was learning how to build a strong foundation for the relationship (as an entity) beginning in the present moment. Sometimes it was possible to uncover an old or existing foundation, perhaps an earlier more positive time in their relationship to return to. As with any edifice under construction, a solid foundation is crucial to the integrity and design of the structure. No architect or contractor would build a house without being sure it was supported by a solid foundation. The same is true of a couple relationship. It is not enough just to teach couples how to communicate better. We have already seen how that kind of one-pronged approach has been insufficient to create meaningful change, and ineffective in achieving long-term results (Jacobson et al., 2000). In our clinical experience, such isolated techniques can even make matters worse unless other factors are considered and included in the treatment. If a couple or therapist naively assumes that love or communication is enough, the couple may find that the relationship they created is missing some crucial elements and could be vulnerable to deterioration and collapse. If the relationship is grounded in a solid foundation, however, beginning with a commitment not to the individual per se but to the relationship, it can handle most any situation that may occur. That is what completing the tasks of the Four Cs is designed to accomplish. Over the decades of our working with couples, we also came to see that whereas commitment was the foundation for a lasting

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partnership and the essential first step, it was by no means the only part of the fundamental structure of a healthy marriage or relationship. As we explain later, the abilities to cooperate and to communicate also play a large role in making the couple work effectively and in a way that increases satisfaction. We worked with our clients for many years creating commitment, teaching cooperation, and fostering good communication. However, we found that couples who had accomplished the basic tasks of commitment, cooperation, and communication still experienced considerable ongoing stress that was difficult for them to manage as a couple. What we noticed in looking at our therapy successes, our own life as a couple, and the lives of some of our close friends was that the couples who maintained therapeutic gains or remained happy and successful in their relationships were those who had a support system comprised of other people in healthy relationships. This discovery reminded us of our training in group therapy that had taught us the power of universality, altruism, and group cohesiveness (Yalom, 1994) in supporting clients. We also remembered our experience of releasing patients from inpatient treatment into circumstances in which little support was available, which caused them to return to the hospital in short order. When we applied our experiences to couples, we saw how important those kinds of outside connections were for couples leaving treatment as well. Maintaining a couple as an entity was a difficult task in many ways, and we began to believe that creating a community of such couples or finding one for clients to join was essential to their long-term success. What emerged was the fourth C, community, the key to maintaining gains and staying healthy as a couple. We came to see how it supports the couple and gives them a place to share their concerns over time. This notion of finding or creating community was reinforced in our own lives as we helped in the creation of a national organization called Couples Coaching Couples (see chap. 6). Preliminary research (Ferguson & Sheras, 2003) has demonstrated that couples often credit the power of community for their success as a couple. The accomplishment of the Four Cs needs to be sequential: commitment, cooperation, communication, and community. They are presented in Part II of this volume in that order. These

INTRODUCTION

13

tasks have a cumulative effect and, although interrelated, each one must be largely achieved before the next may be successfully undertaken. The therapist needs to assess a couple's progress in accomplishing each of the four tasks before proceeding therapeutically to the next. Questions for the therapist to ask couples in assessing each of the Four Cs are presented at the end of each of the chapters of Part II. Some couples come with one or more of these tasks already completed; if that is the case, it is a matter of identifying each area and filling in what is needed, beginning with commitment. Completion and mastery of all four tasks is the ultimate goal of treatment. To ensure that the essential aspects of the Four Cs operate continuously, the therapist needs to teach specific practices and the couple clients need to learn and perform them regularly. As in learning to practice daily meditation or brushing one's teeth, it is not enough to just learn the method and put it aside; it takes consistent, long-term practice to make a difference. In this volume, we present the basic principles and practices that a therapist needs to teach in order for a couple to accomplish the tasks needed to have a profoundly fulfilling relationship. We also emphasize the need for instructing couples how to consistently practice ways to incorporate what they have learned into their daily lives after the termination of formal treatment. We begin this volume by describing the prevailing paradigm of marriage and relationship and propose a new paradigm that redefines how to view couples and work with them. We then describe a new possibility for being in a relationship (as a cocreating couple) and examine common ways that couples present themselves in treatment before they are able to shift the paradigm. In Part II, we describe the basic structure of the tasks of the Four Cs of CPT and provide guidelines for identifying when and how to intervene therapeutically. This will enable the therapist to recognize where to start with each couple and how to assess progress in each of the areas of the Four Cs. These procedures may be used in either couples therapy sessions or group couples treatment, and with all types of couples—married or not, heterosexual or homosexual. Therapies involving work with married persons or those in committed relationships have traditionally been the province of what is called marital therapy. As

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many authors have pointed out, however, the concept of marital therapy, in some ways like the concept of marriage itself, has changed over the past 20 years. In addition to those who seek a traditional marriage or relationship, people now considering themselves to be in relationships include populations such as those who are ambivalent about their relationships, those who are courting or beginning a relationship, gay male and lesbian couples exploring their own unique intimate interactions, and many who do not contemplate marriage at all (Mikesell, Lusterman, & McDaniel, 1995). We must also now include those who merely consider some form of cohabitation or something more than friendship, and those who are together for the sake of parenting children or avoiding costly financial or emotional separations as well. As a result of these changes, Gurman and Jacobson (1995) pointed out that the word couple has replaced marriage to describe this common form of therapy. The former is the term we use throughout this book. From time to time, it will be necessary to go back and check or reinforce the operation of one or more of the Four Cs while working on a subsequent task. In couples therapy, as in any other form of treatment, once is definitely not enough. Common difficulties and cultural obstacles that both therapists and clients face in implementing the model are addressed in Part III, with case examples and applications of the model provided. Understanding the obstacles that couples confront in completing the Four Cs is crucial to the implementation and maintenance of the model in couples' lives. After the Four Cs are learned, they become not so much something to do over and over, but a creative and powerful way of operating for both the therapist and the couple. This new kind of couple consciousness is described at the end of the volume. CPT is the integration of a number of theories and practices used in couples therapy over the past 30 years. Some of the references cited are classics from earlier decades; in many ways, much modern research and theory has veered away from looking at the basic assumptions of what makes a healthy couple. Like the proverbial elephant viewed from different angles, CPT may appear to be both similar and dissimilar to other existing treatments. Viewed in one direction it is clearly recognizable and, in

INTRODUCTION

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another, it appears to be quite unique. For instance, CPT includes teaching cooperation skills and communication training, but only when commitment to the relationship is present. It may appear to be problem-focused but is different from traditional solutionfocused treatments; what matters is not how to take on the problem but the fact that the couple as an entity, not the individuals in the couple, takes responsibility for the problem. CPT also includes acceptance and flexibility, key components in many therapies (Hendrix, 1988; Jacobson et al., 2000), but it emphasizes the creation of an underlying commitment to the relationship as the first step to facilitate acceptance and allow the couple to risk being more flexible. (It may be, in fact, the implicit commitments to the joint goals of a couple that enable acceptance and flexible cooperation to occur.) The CPT model allows the therapist to use many existing tools to help clients build a healthy relationship, but the blueprint of the structure to be built is unique. Looking microcosmically at bits and pieces of this therapy makes it appear similar to many other treatments, but the deep structure and overall goals are different. Perhaps the key element of the structure of CPT that distinguishes it from other seemingly similar therapies is the notion of working with the couple as a committed entity. Thus, although Hudson and O'Hanlon (1991) include commitment as one of their "four factors to make a good and lasting relationship," they "avoid asking questions" about it "at the outset of marital therapy" (p. 156) and start instead with skills such as effective communication. The difficulty presented by individual partners expressing doubt about loving each other (albeit clearly), a concern expressed by Hudson and O'Hanlon, is handled at the outset in CPT by the creation of the couple as an entity to which each partner can commit. Understanding this crucial difference helps bypass the doubt and destructive communication that might otherwise derail the therapy. The partners' commitment to the couple as an entity may be seen as a marital virtue, a concept explored recently by philosophical psychologists (Cushman, 1990; Powers, 2000; Richardson, 2001; Richardson, Powers, & Guignon, 1999). This morally responsible view of "partnership marriage" includes notions of teamwork, active listening, and the couple as a "mini-

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community" (Powers, 2000, p. 197) going beyond just individual gratification. CPT goes further by identifying particular tasks to be accomplished in a specific order, with the help of the therapist. These methods are designed to foster completing the tasks of commitment, cooperation, and communication and, in addition, the task of community at a broader level than that described by Powers (2000). CPT expands the notion of mini-community to encourage couples to discover or create a larger community of couples. This larger community moves partners beyond the status quo and can create a revolution in accomplishing lasting relationship satisfaction. Once understood, the conceptual and operational model of CPT can be applied to a variety of other relationships and settings, both personal and professional—including businesses and organizations, parents and children, siblings, friends, and larger communities. We welcome your feedback and encourage you to experiment with this new way of working in your own professional milieu. During this process, we expect this model will create new possibilities for you, as well as your clients, and that you will enjoy this exciting way of working as much as we have. For this to happen, we invite you to open your mind to try on CPT and see how it might fit into your own practice—into your professional and also your personal life. We hope that this userfriendly book makes it easy to apply and integrate the techniques into your own therapeutic style. Developing the CPT model over the years with our own couple and the couples with whom we have worked, we have been inspired to use it, teach it, and write about it as often as possible— with some remarkable results, as we describe in the following chapters. A growing body of research and clinical experiences supports each of the four basic tasks. Some of this research is cited in the relevant chapters. We welcome collaboration on experimental studies of the specific model described here. While studies are being undertaken by ourselves and others, we encourage you as therapists to apply these principles in your own work and to experience the extraordinary outcomes that are possible for you and your clients.

I A New Paradigm for Relationships: Couple as an Entity

Chapter

1 Redefining Couple: Shifting the Paradigm efore we describe new techniques for couples work, it is necessary to examine the prevailing ideas in psychology and Western culture about what a couple is or ought to be. The term couple refers to a specific type of relationship in society. It has been, most traditionally, a marriage; it has recently grown to include the identification of any two people in a committed, intimate, and loving pair. What a couple is expected to be like and how the members of the couple are supposed to behave is conveyed through modeling and socialization by the culture in which they live. The prevailing description of a healthy couple derives from the current cultural paradigm. This paradigm directly influences how couples feel they measure up to the ideal they expect and whether or not they may need help or guidance in achieving it. It may also determine how therapists view the aspirations of their couple clients and what constitutes a successful outcome of treatment. For us to understand how to succeed in achieving a couple's goals or to decide if the goals are attainable or even necessary, it is first important to look at this prevailing paradigm of couple; then we may determine whether a new paradigm might be more useful. A shift in the paradigm about the ideal couple can open up new opportunities for clients. It may also open the therapist's eyes to new perspectives and create possibilities for different approaches to working with couples.

B

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The Concept of a Paradigm Remember that a paradigm is a model that gives meaning to a person's world. Paradigms shape not only what people think they see but also how they perceive, understand, and interpret everything around them (Covey, 1990). In the case of couples, the partners may feel that good communication is the key to a successful relationship or that being honest will make them happier, or that love conquers all, or that having good sex means that everything else is all right. Viewing a relationship through such a narrow lens may blind people to other important issues or obstruct their ability to envision things differently. Cultures and subcultures prescribe behaviors consistent with their own mores, language, and history, which leads to the development of expectations about how important marriage, religion, and fidelity, for instance, should be. These expectations define the idea of a good or successful relationship. For instance, the notion of wedded bliss in our culture leads most couples to believe that they should be happy most of the time, that sex needs to be consistently exciting and gratifying to both partners, and that all problems can be solved by the two of them alone. Understanding the expectation of a paradigm such as the one above is vital and instructive for those working with couples. Individuals from different cultures, diverse ethnicities, or dissimilar family structures may have difficulty understanding their partner because they do not relate to possible conflicting paradigms of the other person's culture or subculture. They may also feel that the ideal of the culture in which they currently live dictates that they act in a way that may be difficult or impossible for them. Paradigms may be seen by therapists as rational, normative perspectives, but they can also produce potential restrictions or limitations for both clients and those wishing to help them. A couple's inability to see that they are stuck in a destructive paradigm or "box" makes it difficult to bring about change or allow them to see a new possibility "outside the box." It is essential for therapists to realize that they themselves may be stuck in the same or similar paradigm as their clients. For instance, practitioners may be trapped in the same view about what being a

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happy couple looks like. Therapists may also be caught in a paradigm about how best to help, or what constitutes desired outcomes. Being helpful may not be getting the couple to reach the immediate goals they set within the prevailing paradigm (e.g., financial security or an exciting sex life) but, rather, may be getting them to see that invoking or constructing a new perspective may produce different positive outcomes. The job of therapists, then, is not just to help a couple reach their goals but to assist them in changing how they define the goals in the first place. The couple may need to learn how to cooperate and see, for instance, that focusing on learning this skill may be more important to them than making money or having great sex all the time. Let's take the case of Jim and Judy. They came to therapy because they both said their sex life was "a mess." Married for nearly 10 years, they described themselves as happy in general. Although they wanted to have children, they were unable to conceive as a result of their sexual problems. Jim had an ejaculatory dysfunction caused by penile surgery he had as a child, and physicians had been unable to treat his condition medically. Jim and Judy began to date in high school, and Judy had been his only sex partner. They reported enjoying their physical relationship a great deal despite his dysfunction. When they later tried to conceive a baby, however, the complex medical procedure they needed to follow was awkward and discouraging for them. They stopped having sex altogether and contemplated divorce. They felt that their marriage could never be normal because of his condition. He felt hopeless, and she felt cheated. Jim and Judy were living in a paradigm that defined normal marriage as requiring missionary sex, typical ejaculation, and pregnancy. When they came for sex therapy the therapist encouraged them to explore a new model of sex and marriage—to focus on activities that gave them positive feelings about each other, ways of giving each other pleasure and arousing each other sexually in a variety of ways. They were prompted to try to create good feelings from spending time together. To their surprise, they began to enjoy each other's company and physical interactions again—once they were relieved of the expectation to be normal. Once they began to see that physical intimacy

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did not require the kind of sex they thought was necessary, alternatives for sexual pleasure and procreation became apparent. They created a different paradigm for intimacy, couple, and family. Seeing their options in a different way made them feel happier and more successful. It opened up new possibilities for their couple.

Understanding the Limitations of the Current Paradigm of Couple To help couples examine the paradigms in which they live and to change or enlarge these boxes, we as therapists must identify the limitations of the prevailing paradigm. These limitations (or cultural barriers) may be internal or external, innate or acquired, positive or negative. Some of the cultural barriers to being a successful couple can be overcome by working to change behaviors within the existing paradigm or box; others necessitate moving outside the paradigm. Watzlawick, Weakland, and Fisch (1974) speak about changes "inside the box" as first-order changes; second-order changes take place "outside the box," in a larger context or process. In the latter case, behaviors are changed, not because they seem more reasonable or are reinforced, but because they are viewed in a new way. It is this kind of paradigm shift, changing the entire framework or context in which a concept exists versus a change of name or conceptualization, that we feel is necessary for couples therapy. For example, in a relationship, certain behaviors may be extremely annoying to one partner. The husband thinks, for example, that his wife is purposely trying to make him angry by constantly asking for his help. A therapist may rename this behavior as "trying to get your attention because she loves you." A whole different paradigm would examine the assumption that needing to get the other's attention is the important variable here. If it is not necessary to prove that the significant other cares by getting attention in a negative way, the annoying behavior may no longer be essential. Of all the characteristics of the dominant paradigm for relationships that therapists currently encounter, the most impor-

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tant and pervasive limitation appears to be the principle of individualism—the notion that being independent and getting one's needs met is the highest form of personal functioning. From this perspective, a couple is an arrangement between two individuals. In this paradigm, great emphasis is placed on concerns about losing individuality, personal autonomy, and power. In the United States and Europe since the end of the Second World War, there clearly has emerged an ethos of radical individualism in which personal autonomy, individual rights, and social equality has [sic] gained supremacy as the cultural ideal. In keeping with these ideals the main goals of personal behavior have shifted from commitment to social units of all kinds (families, communities, religions, nations) to personal choices, lifestyle options, self-fulfillment, and personal pleasure. (Popenoe, 1991, p. 52)

This paradigm of individualism is one of the major societal factors responsible for the current deterioration of couple relationships. Powers (2000) called it "the dominant philosophy of American life, which helped inspire the myth of marital happiness" (p. 97). It accounts for many of the difficulties people in modern Western culture encounter in firmly establishing themselves as couples—and that psychotherapists encounter in treating them. Although a strong individual identity is certainly important for both individual and couple fulfillment, it seems to have gone too far, fostering the "me" generation of recent decades. Social critic Christopher Lasch (1979) warned decades ago of a spiritual crisis in America: "To live for the moment is the prevailing passion—to live for yourself, not for your predecessors or posterity" (p. 5). The passion for being an individual has threatened the desire and ability to sustain couple relationships, even in marriages with children. "The more crucial reality," according to Hacker (2003), "is that the shifts that are occurring are making it harder for members of the two sexes to adapt to one another" (p. 35). There are certainly some positive outcomes of the present emphasis on individualism in relationships. These include an

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increased freedom of expression for both women and men and less emphasis on staying together purely out of obligation or duty. However, there are too many unnecessary and premature casualties of individualism among couples. Cross-cultural research has indicated, in fact, that the "high divorce rate that characterizes American society is due in good part to the culture's exaggerated sense of individualism" (Dion & Dion, 1988, p. 286). Within the paradigm of individualism, therapeutic efforts ultimately treat the individuals and their ability to exist separately in the couple, rather than teaching them to be a couple together. Stan and Carla, for example, came to treatment because they were separating. Each had a full-time job. When Carla began to work, she arranged her schedule so that one of them was always home with their baby. Each wanted a career, however. Even though the money from two incomes was not essential, Carla had said she wanted to feel useful in the world and not just be a mother to their child. From the beginning, things did not go well. They rarely had time together and when they did, one was usually coming home tired from work while the other was just getting ready to go. Carla felt that she was getting little support at home from Stan—chores were not done, and he was not emotionally responsive. Stan felt alone at home and missed Carla. Carla eventually formed a relationship with a salesman with whom she worked closely at the office, and they began an affair. She then decided to leave Stan. In this case, individual plans and goals took precedence over the needs of their relationship.

Limitations of the Paradigm of Individualism The paradigm of individualism leads to many perceptions that may impede the progress of therapy and the healthy development and maintenance of a couple relationship. Therapists often see at least three patterns. The first of these is the fear of intimacy—that is, the fear of the loss of individual identity or personal space; the second impediment is egocentrism, when the person experiences a conflict of interest between couple and personal goals; the third difficulty is the issue of sacrifice and the related notion of compromise.

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Fear of Intimacy Many people enter their relationship with little understanding of what it takes to function together successfully. During childhood and adolescence, they developed an identity based on personal uniqueness, engrossed in the struggle to become superior to their peers and independent of their parents. During the school years, emphasis is placed on individual grades and personal achievement. Even while struggling with pressures to conform and strong needs to affiliate, teenagers try to be themselves, original and one-of-a-kind. It is no wonder that when they begin to consider being part of a couple, they are concerned about losing what they have so recently gained—what they consider to be their separate sense of self. This intense desire to maintain the unique self leads to the fear that their identity might be submerged, taken over, or negated by the force of their partner's identity. In the early stages of a relationship, this interplay of two selves is usually playful, flirtatious, and competitive. When the time comes for a long-term commitment to be made, to decide whether to stay together, marry, and have children, the challenge to the sense of individuality reemerges. This challenge may form a barrier to creating a couple and to successful treatment as well. Although we as therapists often attempt to create some space for individual time and some for the couple (my time, your time, and our time), conflicts over apportioning this time are often quite intense and threatening to a sense of the independence our clients seem to desire. For example, having one's own space, room, checking account, and the like may seem to be protection of personal identity, but it may really just be a hedge to prevent the person from confronting their fears of committing to a relationship fully and trusting the couple to protect them. Egocentrism If each member of a couple is a unique individual, as the prevailing cultural paradigm insists, then occasions will arise when what one person wants differs significantly from what the other wants. These conflicts of interest cause a mismatch

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of expectations (Hacker, 2003) and potentially severe upsets, threatening the longevity of the relationship. "Brides and grooms are less embarking on a journey together than on a trip with two separate itineraries and destinations" (Hacker, p. 35). This kind of exaggerated egocentrism often leads to arguments designed to convince the other person that what he or she wants is not important or less important. It is not uncommon to find that one partner attempts to intimidate or threaten the other one to get his or her way. Threats to leave, to assault physically, to deny sex, or to collapse emotionally are common manifestations of these conflicts of interest. Therapists are often called on to mediate these disputes, to judge whose needs are most important or more normal or, at least, to get the partners to "fight fair." Carlos and Wanda, a couple for 4 years, came to therapy saying that they were constantly arguing. Their fights were often about small things, such as what to wear to a party or which grade of gasoline to put in the car. Both were unable to give in to the other on anything. Both reported that they felt threatened and intimidated by what the other wanted. Carlos said that when Wanda did not get her way, she would withdraw from him and sulk for days. Wanda said that Carlos would sometimes even threaten to hurt her physically (although he never had). They wanted the therapist to tell them who was right. The therapist knew that this would not solve their problems, but each of the partners was adamant and unwilling to give in. The therapist was able to see that the arguments were about not only content issues but also conflicts of individual interest that escalated because of their egocentrism. Each felt that he or she would be dominated by the other and lose his or her individual identity. When this was pointed out to them, they were able to stop fighting and reexamine what they really wanted from the relationship. Sacrifice and Compromise Most couples feel that to be in a healthy relationship, each member must be willing to give something up. They think the more they want the relationship to succeed, the more they must be willing to sacrifice and the more significant the sacrifices must

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be. Many couples feel that they are willing to make a sacrifice, but want to be assured that their partner is making an equivalent concession. In many cases, the sacrifice that one person makes is either unacknowledged or undervalued by the other, which creates a sense of martyrdom or resentment. Jason and Jodi, a young married couple with one child, came to therapy at her insistence. He had to give up his Wednesday night softball games to come. Jason wasn't sure what she wanted and was clearly feeling hassled. She explained that for years she had been taking care of the house and their young daughter as well as managing the checkbook while he was out most nights with his friends, playing sports and having fun. She did not see him very much, and when he was home, either he was distracted watching TV or she was exhausted from doing her chores. In the past year, she had taken on a part-time clerical job to help with the finances, but she felt unacknowledged for her extra work. Jason said that he was confused by Jodi's feelings. He worked hard during the week and brought in a fair amount of money. He felt that he needed his time at home to rest. He felt that she did not have a full-time job, so that, though she did manage the household, she had more time to do her own things during the day while he was at work. He felt that his main job was professional work, and hers was to be at home. She might want to have a career later, after their daughter Lorna was out of elementary school. This was the way it had been with his parents when Jason was growing up. Jason thought that changing their patterns would mean that he would have to give up what he believed in. He thought he needed to use his free time to have fun and recuperate from work. Jodi felt she had to sacrifice her own desires to do what he wanted. She said that she saw her own mother do what her father wanted all the time, giving up a promising career as an artist. Jodi decided she was unwilling to do the same. She was tired of giving things up for Jason, and he seemed unwilling to do so for her. Each one did not want to make a sacrifice for the other person to make them happier. When this became clear in therapy, it became the immediate focus of their sessions. For some couples, sacrifice seems like an intense form of compromise in which what they must give up is extremely costly to

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them. Compromise is a similar concept but with the implication that there is consensus about what is to be given up and more acknowledgment for it. The notion of compromise is distinct from what we describe as cooperation, which will be discussed later (see chap. 4, this volume). Although the word compromise often means the act of giving something up, its Latin root means a mutual promise. The negative connotation of the word compromise, driven by the common idea that to share, one has to give something up, can be destructive to the establishment of a healthy and flexible relationship. However, the second way to view this word—a compromise seen as an opportunity to decide some actions together—may be a sign of cooperating as a healthy couple. The first sort of compromise may frighten couples away from the commitment of a relationship, whereas the second meaning may show them some possibilities they had not seen yet. It is important, then, for a therapist to help couples understand this second meaning of compromise to avoid the profoundly individualistic idea portrayed by the first meaning.

A New Paradigm of Couple The cultural paradigm of individualism reflects the belief that a relationship is the coming together of two individuals in such a way that each of their needs can be met by the other. The primary focus is on the individual being satisfied. The creation of a couple, in this sense, is seen through the eyes of the individual, not the vision for the relationship. Most people look for a perfect partner—for Mr. Right or the Perfect Woman. These ideals are based on expectations of individuals who want always to be able to be completely themselves while still being part of an equal and loving couple. However, the chance of such perfect individuals getting together in perfectly equal relationships is quite small.

The Couple as Entity A different paradigm of relationships is possible, one in which the couple is viewed as an entity—in and of itself. The partners

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do not see the relationship as primarily meeting their individual or even each other's needs, but rather meeting the agreed upon needs of the relationship itself. They are devoted to the entity that they create together. For instance, Campbell (1988) stated, "Marriage is a relationship. When you make the sacrifice in marriage, you're sacrificing not to each other, but to the unity in a relationship" (p. 7). The couple becomes an entity when the partners form a relationship according to certain conditions. When they are joined together as one, primarily by saying that it is so, they do not act in relation to each other, but in relation to the couple entity. This is a paradigm for couples entirely different from the one based on the culture of individualism described above. When this paradigm of couple is used, while individual histories are still addressed, the focus in therapy changes from meeting individual expectations and goals to forming and meeting the goals of the couple. It is often said when referring to good relationships that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. In the paradigm of couple as an entity, the relationship goes beyond the contributions of the individuals. They are not just adding more feelings and behaviors to the repertoire of themselves as individuals, but generating different ones that serve the couple. These new behaviors are similar to what Powers (2000) called "partnership virtues" that "exist for the sake of a higher good ... a better marriage" (p. 113). If a couple is an entity, and it is the creation and maintenance of that entity that allows for happy and fulfilling partnerships, then commitment to the goals of that unified relationship is essential. Therapists need to help clients create their couple entity or discover that such an entity already exists. Our culture has no real name for this entity, although the word marriage purports to be that name. As mentioned earlier, this entity will be referred to here as couple without the use of the article the or a in front of it. A couple or the couple, on the other hand, reflects the paradigm of individuality of two people trying to achieve some particular thing together. Nock (1999) described this condition as being "like two soloists [who] do not make a very good duet" (p. 26). Even though they may both be excellent musicians, they play their individual parts, lacking a sense of what the entire

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piece should sound like. Individuals may share many things or have a great deal in common, but this "may not be sufficient to create an enduring entity without including a shared commitment to a larger notion of what it means to be a couple" (Sheras & Koch-Sheras, 2000, p. 88). Once couple as an entity is established, it empowers the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of the partners. The world is seen through the eyes of the entity known as couple. It becomes the paradigm through which partners view the world and act in it. It is vital for the couples therapist to note that most clients arrive for treatment without having truly established their couple in this sense. They may believe that they are a couple but do not see what is missing, or they try to fix what is wrong with the other person, thinking that will be the solution. If couple is an entity and not just two individuals, it has, in some sense, its own being. This being motivates behaviors. This being comes, not from individualism, but from couplism. Once the entity is established, there is no need to prove its existence. The couple is because the partners agree that it is. Then the couple, not the individuals but the unit with nothing to prove to one another, acts. For a couple operating within the individualism paradigm, the individuals must usually prove that they are dedicated to each other to convince themselves that they are a viable couple. They might plan a trip or even buy a new house, but they may not really be couple. Once couple is created, rather than wondering if they have an acceptable partner and constantly evaluating their actions (e.g., Does she love me? Is he passionate enough for me?), the partners are now able to examine the goals of the relationship to which they are committed, and to see if their actions are consistent with the vision they have created for their couple entity together. In this regard, couple is a place to come from, not a place to get to. The couple, not the individuals, takes on the problems. Clients soon realize through couple power therapy (CPT) that couple is who you are, not what you do. Actions and behaviors are a by-product of being couple, not things designed to demonstrate that they can be dedicated to each other. Partners become dedicated to the relationship, not just to each other.

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Barb and Daniel had been dating for 2 years and went to couples therapy to explore a "deeper commitment." Dan had some nagging concerns about trusting Barb to be both financially and emotionally responsible in their relationship. They had tried to make a joint budget and even plan a vacation but always argued about the details. Dan was not sure whether they were really a couple—or just two people who had fun doing things together. The therapist shifted the emphasis from what each person wants to creating the couple as an entity. T: What is it that you would like from Barb? D: I want to know that I can trust her completely. T: If you could trust her completely, what would your couple be like? D: What do you mean, what would our couple be like? T: What would your couple be like together as a unit? How would you be as a couple? D: Well, we would trust each other. I could ask her to do anything and she would do it, or at least tell me why she couldn't at the time. B: And vice versa. I could ask you and you would do it. And we could talk about it. D: Yeah, I guess so. T: So together you might be able to decide what you would do? B: And if we really understood each other, I wouldn't ask him to do anything outrageous. And he could trust me. T: Why don't you do that this week, Dan? Why don't you do everything that Barb asks, whatever it is, and see what happens. That way you might see if you can trust her to do what is best for your couple.

Dan was anxious about the task, to say the least, but reluctantly agreed. When they returned at the next session, Dan reported that, to his surprise, Barb's requests were very reasonable and not at all irresponsible or impossible. She said that she knew

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that the requests she made were really not for her alone, but for their couple. He saw that he could tell her to ask for anything because she would never ask for anything that was not consistent with being couple. The Goals of Therapy Couples therapy may be an effective vehicle for addressing individual problems or dysfunctions. The treatment of these difficulties often significantly influences the overall happiness of a couple or marriage by enhancing the happiness of one of the partners. Although treating individual issues may be useful in its own right, CPT focuses on the interventions and tasks that foster the health of the overall marriage or relationship itself. The concept here is that this therapy is treatment of and for the relationship, not primarily for the individuals per se. Even though it is likely that a positive relationship helps support individual progress, the focus here is on creating and maintaining the couple partnership. The basic principle of the couple power model is that a relationship that is functioning well is the bedrock of mental health in most aspects of a person's life. Most therapies assume that healthy individuals are necessary to produce a healthy couple. This new paradigm encompasses the idea that a healthy, well-functioning relationship supports the health of the individual. In some ways, CPT could be considered a source of healing and support to help families deal with their issues, and to help individuals deal with their issues as well. Luquet (1996) stated, for instance, "Healthy conscious relationships may be the means for individuals to reclaim their 'wholeness' and pass on a peaceful consciousness to future generations" (p. 13). A couple that shares problems and supports its own general well-being can't help but support the health of the individuals. For instance, a couple might create a commitment to healthy nutrition or lifestyle and together produce a more complete healthful environment, more than can be created by one of them alone, even for the sake of the other. Why study or work with the functioning of the couple in particular rather than the individual or the family as a whole? We believe that the couple is the essential element in overcoming

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the limitations of the paradigm of individualism. To be part of a couple creates immediate opportunities for developing meaningful sharing, cooperation, and teamwork. It is in a couple relationship, an intimate relationship of choice, not blood relation, that one must learn to love, share, cooperate, and forgive to meet mutual goals. In this sense, couple is not just a part of the family but is the genesis of the family, the source and model of positive relatedness between the partners and all family members. This book is designed to help practitioners to determine (a) reasonable goals or outcomes for healthy couples to achieve with our help as therapists and (b) the methods that help to promote these gains. As a starting point, an assessment of goals to reach in couples therapy may include the following: D D n n D n D D

n

maintenance of a positive relationship and divorce prevention, reduction of discord, increase in intimacy, increase in marital satisfaction, effective communication between partners, increase in happiness and joy, increase in positive sexual functioning or fulfillment, sense of mutual accomplishments and cooperation (e.g., parenting, teamwork), ability to construct a future or a vision for the couple together, and community participation with extended family or other couples.

To aid client couples in reaching these goals, the therapist needs to coach his or her clients to see the obstacles that often stand in the way of achieving them. Within the context of the new paradigm, therapeutic goals include helping clients to understand and establish the entity couple, or to decide that such a commitment is not viable at this time. Many therapists know that it is difficult to treat a client who is not committed to being in treatment. In couples therapy, it is difficult to treat partners who are not first committed to work on being couple. To be successful in this kind of work, the partners must learn a new paradigm of couple. The therapist, who is already familiar with

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it and has a model for explaining it, presents the new paradigm to them. Introducing the four basic tasks of couple, or the Four Cs of Couple Power, is the best way to begin. It is important to accomplish these tasks in sequence, and all participants should understand how each of these tasks reflects the paradigm shift described above. Each of the Four Cs counters the negative force of individualism as it builds couple. Whereas Part II describes in detail how to accomplish the Four Cs, we provide a brief summary in the context of the new paradigm here. The first task to accomplish is the establishment of commitment to the couple as an entity. This is separate and distinct from committing to each other as individuals. It is the task of the therapist to create the awareness of this entity and the vision of what a true couple relationship is for the partners. This includes the process of asking them to consider what sort of relationship would be possible for them, and then committing to it. Once couple is established or recognized, helping the partners in therapy is much simpler because they do not question the existence of their couple. Commitment to being a happy couple becomes paramount, as opposed to commitment to personal happiness. By the way, it has been our experience that couples who are happy as couple are usually happy as individuals as well. Once commitment to the couple entity is established, the next task is to teach the partners how to meet the stated goals of their couple. This is accomplished by learning the second C, the task of cooperation. Despite what most couples think, they usually do not know how to operate effectively as a team to achieve common goals. They may not have been able to even generate common goals that they each can believe in—usually because they have been socialized to compete as individuals and have never had to practice teamwork together. Although individually they may have had the experience of working on a team in sports or business, they do not generally apply the skills from these areas to common goals in their couple. Partners often attempt to compromise by giving up something. It is unlikely that compromising will satisfy either partner completely. Someone usually ends up feeling guilty, resentful, or compromised. Cooperation as couple involves learning such concepts as teamwork,

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goal setting, and coaching. These skills are described in subsequent chapters. The need to speak clearly to a partner and to be understood is very important in any healthy relationship. Most people think that communication is the most important factor in a relationship. To communicate effectively, however, the partners first have to create a framework for the purpose of supporting the couple as a committed entity. This is in contrast to communicating just to meet the needs of the individuals; that kind of communication is based on self-centeredness and the paradigm of individualism rather than cooperation. The new paradigm, on the other hand, allows partners to communicate through their commitment to couple versus the individual. Only when this has been accomplished can communication (the third C) be effectively accomplished. The last of the Four Cs is community. Together with the first C (commitment), these two concepts form the frame or bookends of the new couple paradigm. People need the supportive structure and collective group identification that a larger group or community is able to provide—even when they are already in a satisfying relationship. Communities may include a number of generations, including elders or parents, or they may be comprised predominantly of peers, those in the couple's age group, neighbors, friends, or relatives. The first form of community might be called vertical, and the second, horizontal. In past generations, when couples were created in a context of a larger community of shared values and goals, the focus of being together— both within generations and with peers—could go beyond the individual or just the relationship itself. Today, people are often more motivated by a sense of individual entitlement than a sense of connection; they are more concerned with the satisfaction of their personal needs than with developing a sense of community with others. At the same time, whether single or in couples, people desperately need and seek connection with others. The diagram that follows briefly portrays the four basic tasks to be accomplished in treatment (see Figure 1.1). After the establishment of commitment, therapy provides the skills of cooperation and then aids the partners in communicating clearly. Finally,

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COMMITMENT

COOPERATION

COMMUNICATION

COMMUNITY Figure 1.1.

The basic tasks of CPT treatment.

a strong community helps to reinforce the commitment made by the partners and provides support for it. It is also true that commitment fosters better communication, and cooperation helps build community.

How to Change Paradigms The focus of the approach to couples work proposed in this volume is based on the notion that to be most effective, it is necessary to change or shift the paradigm of couple from working with two individuals to working with the entity of couple. This is easier said than done, of course. To aid clients in shifting the paradigm they have for relationships, we as therapists must first shift our own. Therapists must examine their own relationships—not just those with significant others, but with clients as

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well. This task involves more than just looking at countertransference issues with particular clients. It means examining feelings about their own relationships and values. Practitioners may come to see that their own expectations about relationships may limit the possibilities of client couples. In fact, the practitioners themselves may actually be a part of the problem they are trying to help alleviate. Questions that need to be asked include the following: Are the goals in treatment geared to individual change or a change in the paradigm of the couple problem? When feeling frustrated or blocked by clients, how do I as a therapist think about the problem? In the context of treating couples, it is useful for us to see therapists as agents of change. First, we teach clients to view the world differently, and then we support them in finding ways to operate inside the new paradigm they have adopted. In his description of scientific revolutions, Kuhn (1970) described the process of change as a "relatively sudden and unstructured event" (p. 62). This "aha" experience is possible only if we, as therapists, are willing to view things differently ourselves. Practitioners need to view relationships from a different perspective than they have in the past: They need to look at what is possible in the future—not just to look for the problems, but to see possibilities as well. That requires not looking for what is wrong, but for what is possible for the couples with whom we work. Likewise, we should look at what is possible for couples therapy in the future, and not be overly critical about what has failed. "One of the most common fallacies about change is the conclusion that if something is bad, its opposite must necessarily be good" (Watzlawick et al., 1974, p. 19). Attempting to shift a paradigm by trying to facilitate the opposite behaviors of clients may represent only a first-order solution. For example, the couple that argues over the fact that the husband will not pick up his dirty underwear from the bedroom floor may work with a therapist to find a way to change this behavior. One suggestion might be that he pay a fine each time he leaves his briefs around, or be rewarded every time he puts them in their proper place. These solutions are predicated on the assumption that this is a problem and that the husband is

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wrong in what he does. Even though he may comply, he is likely to feel like a bad child and perform his tasks grudgingly. On the other hand, if the "dirty underwear" behavior is seen as an opportunity for the couple entity, it could generate a different sort of solution. The couple might take on the issue as a team or joint project. They might buy a backboard to place on the laundry hamper so that the husband can shoot his shorts in the basket before going to bed. This is fun for both the husband and the couple, acknowledging their mutual desire for playfulness, instead of his sloppiness. In treating couples, we must take care and look for possible solutions in creative ways. Although therapists often look to the past for explanations and ideas, it might be more useful to look to the future. If a miracle occurred, how would the partners like things to be, and how might the couple entity support such behaviors? Changing paradigms is not easy. It requires flexibility, daring, inventiveness, and playfulness. When one is feeling stuck, it is fine to stop and try something else. When a negative outcome is likely to occur again for some clients, take a deep breath and consider something off the wall. It may be that any change at that point is better than no change at all. We often use the analogy for clients that changing their view and behavior from individualism to couplism is like going from seeing the world as flat to seeing it as round. This new perspective changes almost everything for the better, but it is a difficult adjustment to make initially.

When Paradigms Are Shifted Despite the sometimes obvious benefits, most people continue to avoid change. It is just too scary. People are taught by the news media and their own experiences to believe that any time things change, they can always get worse. Although it is possible to find a few examples of when things did get worse, people often overlook times when the opposite was true. Changing the paradigm of relationships epitomizes for clients both their fears and their potential. Couples often seem to be holding onto slim hopes, distorting reality, or trying to get per-

REDEFINING COUPLE

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mission to start over. The idea of viewing the couple as an entity changes what is conceptualized. The client couple moves from blaming each other individually to working together as a unit. The therapist moves from analyzing the problem to envisioning a possibility. The practitioner may thereby help couples create something that will give them joy and happiness, not just remove annoyance or pain. In doing so, they can assist a couple in reaching new heights in functioning, satisfaction, and happiness. Remember, of course, that there likely will be another paradigm that will help us place this one in perspective some day as well!

Chapter

2 The Cocreating Couple: A New Possibility anaging problems of inflexibility when working with couples is often the first challenge for the couples therapist. The partners must be open and flexible enough to consider new ways of thinking and behaving. Causing change or creating new perspectives involves assessing past and current patterns of behavior. Helping a couple to be more flexible is essential to exploring new possibilities and effecting successful therapeutic outcomes. In this chapter, we describe what flexibility in a wellfunctioning couple relationship (i.e., the cocreating couple) might look like and compare it with common fixed patterns often seen in couples coming for treatment.

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Characteristics of the Flexible Cocreating Couple It is important for couples therapists to have a clear notion of a healthy relationship as a framework for working with clients. Although well-trained in identifying and diagnosing dysfunction in individuals and couples, therapists often lack a positive model of couple functioning. A picture of the behavioral repertoire or identity of a well-functioning couple can be constructed on the basis of the notion of the couple as an entity. Most couples living in an individualistic culture fit the definition of identity as a 41

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"fixed pattern of characteristics enduring over time"; however, a truly well-functioning couple is actually less a fixed unit and more a flexible way of operating. Once a therapist adopts the concept of couple as an entity, this model is capable of creating a powerful relationship—one that is able to accommodate over time to personal, social, and environmental change. We call this kind of couple pattern cocreating. Couples in distress do not generally come in for treatment already equipped with the necessary set of characteristics or skills to function in this way. Fortunately, however, most of them are able to learn how to become a cocreating couple by practicing the set of cognitions and behaviors described here that therapists can help them to master. The cocreating couple is actually more a process than a static set of behaviors belonging to a definable entity. These kinds of couples may look different, each with their own unique pattern or identity, depending on the needs and creativity of the partners. Although it is made up of two individuals, the cocreating couple is greater than and different from the sum of its two individual parts. It is a way of being to be created, rather than a specific goal or set of behaviors to achieve. It is about creating new possibilities continuously, not so much meeting any particular ideal. The cocreating couple is creating their relationship together as they go along, instead of striving to achieve a specific type of relationship. The cocreating couple is continuously able to develop their own way of being that meets their changing needs, rather than following any set pattern or expectations. Individuals in this kind of couple see options beyond what their culture presents them, so they are more able to get past the obstacles to couple that exist in our society. If one of them loses a job, for example, they work together to come up with a creative solution. Rather than either one of them feeling pressured to handle the situation in a way that they think they should, they find options together—even if it takes added time and effort. This kind of flexibility enables them to deal with change effectively. They accept that things change, instead of living from one crisis to the next. When things become difficult, they work together to handle it rather than blaming themselves or each other for the problem.

THE COCREATING COUPLE

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Extreme case examples often help to elucidate a point. A powerful example of a couple's need to be flexible and overcome blame is dealing with the death of a child. A traumatic event like that has a strong negative impact on the well-being of the individuals and the couple, often leading to divorce. It has been shown that the effects of such a loss are ameliorated with spousal support (Broman, Riba, & Trahan, 1996). Helen and Jamie, a happy couple for 8 years, experienced a traumatic impact on their lives when a drunk driver hit the car Helen was driving, killing their only child. Both partners were emotionally shattered by this crisis. They each worked on their grief individually, sharing with therapists and friends. At one point, they considered splitting up but, instead, looked for new ways to relate to each other. They had the idea of getting in touch with old friends who had known them early on in their relationship. These old friends could help them remember and reconstruct their original couple—before they had a child. This helped give them enough strength to heal, grieve together, and create new options. They used this process to build a new vision and possibility for their couple—including having more children (eventually having three more). Couples like Helen and Jamie operate with flexibility. They are able to deal with change by looking at what is possible rather than what is wrong, and by living with a focus on the future rather than the past. What enables cocreating couples to maintain the quality of their relationship over time is their ability to see their couple as an ongoing process—not a static end point to be reached. These kinds of couples realize that the commitment to their relationship does not end with their wedding vows, at which point in time they will automatically live happily ever after, as in a fairy tale. The cocreating couple is constantly evolving and adapting realistically to changing circumstances. That is why we call it cocreating, not cocreative, which implies a static state. Each of the partners realizes that what is at stake is being happy and fulfilled in the relationship most of the time. Helen and Jamie's marriage would certainly have died with their child if they had not had the stamina and vision to create something different for their

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couple in the future. It took a great deal of courage as well as confidence in their ability to create a powerful new way of being as a couple. Their newly created relationship would not be based on what was expected from the past, but rather what was possible for the future. They did not have to settle for just surviving but could work together to fully heal their couple and each other. To keep their love and their couple alive, Helen and Jamie needed to work through their grief and get beyond their own individual needs to see the value and possibility of their couple as a whole. They had to acknowledge their individual pain while staying connected to each other and to the potential of their couple as a unit. When they lost their child, it might have seemed easier to end their marriage and just start over, focusing on their own individual pain and their own separate goals. This kind of solution, however, would have ended the connection and support they could get from their couple and would have increased the me-you individualistic oppositional forces between them. The solutions of the cocreating couple are more consistent with a collectivist view: "autonomy and connection are viewed ... as complementary essences (e.g., from the Chinese Taoist conceptualization of yin and yang) that contribute to the relational whole" (Ting-Toomey, 1994, p. 53). A collectivist view of the couple is crucial to overcoming external circumstances and pressures from the environment. The members of any couple are constantly pressured by two conflicting forces—the urge for independence and the desire for a lasting partnership. The commitment to their couple as an entity is what enables them to withstand the pressures of staying together as a couple over time. The members of a cocreating couple derive a great deal of what they need to make their relationship work by committing beyond individual goals to common ones. It is the therapist's job to help them envision what they might see as the higher purpose of their couple, one that constantly re-creates itself. Individual goals and perspectives are shared not to strengthen one's own case but to contribute to a mutual view of what will preserve and nurture the relationship. This sharing requires getting past each partner's individual wants and needs to help the couple develop a joint vision that assimilates their separate perspectives. Existing rigid couple interaction patterns, described


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below, may also inhibit the move to collectivist thinking and cocreating processes. The skills available to a cocreating couple are similar to those needed for operating as a team. The members of a couple identify themselves as a unit or team, with each partner (player) making a valuable contribution toward the goals of the couple as a whole. They function like the poles of a teepee—each one strong in their own right leaving space for the other to function, while being mutually supportive of the whole. They operate as partners all of the time, even when they are not doing the same thing. They are not just with each other; they are for each other. Even though one or both partners might be in a bad mood or under stress one day, they know they will work things out somehow. When they cannot agree on what to do, they take turns generating solutions, or they originate a new plan. If one of the team players is sitting on the bench, as Helen was when she was in the hospital after the car accident, the other one pinch-hits for the couple team. Jamie made the effort to ask their friends to help care for Helen and support their couple at the same time. That commitment to their team helped to keep their couple in the game—as well as keep Jamie out of getting deeper into his own depression. Helen made sure to ask their friends to get Jamie to talk about his feelings. As members of the same team, they saw that each of them was responsible not only for their own performance and well-being but also for the other player as well. In this sense, working together as a team and maintaining a cocreating couple is not a 50/50 proposition; it is a 100% /100% endeavor. Each partner in the couple takes 100% of the responsibility for the outcome and is 100% committed to doing whatever is best for the couple as a whole, no matter how challenging. In this way, the couple cares for their relationship as if it were their child. The partners or "caretakers" of the couple do not think of abandoning their creation just because they disagree on what to do. They do not ignore the entity they have created just because it is not their turn to be responsible. If communication problems arise, the therapist shifts the focus from blaming each other to taking on the conflict as if it were the child belonging to the couple, not the individual. A solution involves asking what the couple can do, not waiting for each individual to do his or her

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50% share. It is not "She needs to change" or "If only he would. . . . " Instead, it looks like "How can we understand each other better?" or "How can we support clear communication without blaming each other?" A young intercultural couple, Carol and Ravi, demonstrated the power of a cocreating relationship when dealing with his parents in India who opposed their engagement and marriage. The pressure was so great that they had considered breaking up. By getting clear about their commitment to their couple, Carol was able to give up her expectations about how she thought her in-laws should act and Ravi committed to making it work for both their couple and his extended family. It was a difficult but ultimately successful effort. In cocreating their relationship, they were able to see that what really mattered was pursuing their larger vision, rather than meeting their current idealized expectations of themselves, each other, or their families. They were able to stop judging and start supporting each other, their families, and their couple as well. When they stopped testing each other on how they were doing, they could give all their energy to making it work. After a trip to visit Ravi's parents in India, Carol and Ravi gave 100%/100% to getting past feeling misunderstood by each other. Each of them felt like the other had been unwilling to step into the other's world and see the other's difficulty. Rather than staying stuck in being right about their own individual thoughts and feelings, however, they were able to take on the issue as a team, with both of them together responsible for the outcome. From this place, they acknowledged each other for their commitment to the relationship, rather than blaming each other for their problems. They continued to reach out to his parents as couple, returning to India 2 years later with their new baby for another visit, still working as a team to keep couple and family alive and well. Many cocreating couples share the characteristics of flexibility in managing their lives. This flexible behavior enables them to overcome the various obstacles to couple that they encounter along the way. For example, rather than adhering to any fixed gender stereotype, they are able to assume either male or female gender roles when needed. People exhibiting this kind of an-


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drogynous behavior have reported the greatest levels of marital satisfaction and personal adjustment (Cooper, Chassin, & Zeiss, 1985). The couples described above all displayed androgynous behaviors. Carol often took a proactive role in problem solving and administering details for their wedding when Ravi was busy with his visits to India. Helen, normally very much in charge, was able to let herself be taken care of when she was recuperating from her injuries. In a similar manner, Helen's husband Jamie was able to be sensitive to the physical and emotional health of their couple, taking on the role of calling their friends for support, taking care of the house, and performing other nurturing behaviors. The key here was the flexibility of these individuals to adapt to the circumstances confronting their couple as the need developed, regardless of previous patterns or role expectations.

Characteristics of Fixed Couple Patterns Very few couples enter therapy with many cocreating characteristics. They generally exhibit a particular pattern of behavior with distinctive inflexible or fixed features. Over nearly 3 decades of treating couples, we have observed some familiar, recurring, and recognizable patterns of behavior. We see these not only in the individual partners, but also in the style and characteristics of the couple interactions themselves. It is a useful operational model to view couples as having distinct styles of relating over time. Several authors have described common functional and dysfunctional patterns in relationships (Scarf, 1987; WeinerDavis, 1993). It is consistent with the notion that a couple represents an entity distinct from its component members to assert that the couple has a cohesive set of traits or characteristics of its own. Couples come to therapy in varying stages of functioning and development. The evolution of any particular couple may result in different possible couple identities or patterns at different times in the life of a relationship. We refer to these couple characteristics as identities rather than diagnostic categories, because we do not necessarily see these as illnesses or dysfunctions but as behavior patterns with their own unique strengths and limitations.

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It is important to distinguish the flexible way in which cocreating couples like Carol and Ravi and Jamie and Helen worked with each other to handle the issues in their couples from traditional behaviors common in other types of relationships. These traditional behaviors often represent the rigid pattern of expectations or attitudes of an individualistic culture that limits the adaptability of couples over time. These behaviors may be a developmental stage that couples pass through or expectations that result from cultural or familial experiences. These recognizable patterns become problematic when they prevent more flexible alternatives from becoming possible. Couples often experience one or more patterns of interaction over time. They may, in fact, manifest several of these throughout the course of their relationship. Sometimes they are stuck in a particular developmental phase and cannot progress. For example, a partner might say, "Everything is great between us, except he does not seem willing to commit to marriage." Recognizing and understanding the most frequently occurring couple patterns and working to create additional, more expanded or healthier ones makes therapy much more efficient and effective. Here are three examples of patterns or identities that we have observed in couples in our clinical practice over the years. We have noticed that these patterns often correspond to typical manifestations of the paradigm of individualism in relationships. Each of the following three examples may limit the spontaneous emergence of new cocreating behaviors within the relationship. A brief description of these couple patterns and how they differ from the cocreating couple follows. The Romantic Couple Romance is a basic characteristic of a healthy couple. For some partners, however, this romantic aspect of their couple becomes their dominant and nearly exclusive way of operating over time. When people first get together, they may experience infatuation and intense physical and sexual attraction, as well as a desire to be with the other person all of the time. These couples often describe themselves as "lost in each other." It is as if they are so wrapped up in each other that they lose sight of anything or


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anyone else beyond their immediate relationship needs. They spend time just being together and investing great amounts of energy staying awake and together. Couples of this type often appear very much in love but experience fatigue at some point from the constant arousal of their union. Romantic couples often idealize the image of their partner. This idealization often acts as a barrier to knowing the other person in any other way. This pattern may represent an immaturity of individuals who use the cultural stereotype of the ideally attractive mate as a guide for selecting a partner. Although many relationships typically begin with romance, some continue to function with these feelings and behaviors as paramount. Sometimes this pattern develops from a need for refuge or escape, and it may contain nearly obsessive behaviors of hypersexuality, overdependency, and neediness. Some romantic couples develop this way of relating as a result of an overwhelming physical attraction, whereas others may manifest it out of a failure to broaden their relationship to include dealing with other aspects of commitment or everyday problems. For instance, a couple may use sex to distract themselves from having to make a deeper commitment to emotional as well as physical intimacy, or they may settle arguments by having sex instead of truly resolving ongoing conflicts or incomplete issues. Wile (1981) stated the following about this sort of relationship: The advantage of romantic love ... is that it allows individuals who are capable of it ... to develop a feeling of love almost regardless of what is happening in the relationship. The disadvantages are that the relationship can be impersonal (the individual is having a relationship with the fantasy of the partner) and unstable (the love may turn to hate if the partner does not provide the minimum required to maintain the fantasy), (p. 77)

As most people discover, this sort of relationship often loses its intensity after a year to 18 months. It tends to rise and fall on the quality of physical attraction and interactions. Over time, the partners may become bored and seek a new partner to arouse

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them again. They may also change physically (i.e., during or following pregnancy, as a result of aging or disease, or as a result of the side effects of medication); they may wish to end their relationship or open it up to include multiple partners either separately or together. This latter solution—sometimes called an "open marriage"—usually ends up creating more problems and jealousies in the end. In working with couples stuck in the romantic pattern, therapists must address the fact that the obstacle to a longlasting and cocreating relationship (and the establishment of a couple entity) may be the partners' desire for the other to be ideal or perfect. When the achievement of this desire seems possible during the first blushes of romance and infatuation, the relationship appears to be healthy. Later, however, when perfection is no longer present, the partners question the selection of this person, desiring instead to find a more perfect companion. Case example. Consider the following case. Jared and Jan had been together for nearly 3 years. When they met on a blind date, he was a medical student, and she was working in the office of a large accounting firm. They were both dedicated to their careers. From the beginning, they described an overwhelming chemistry between them; after 2 months, they decided to live together. At first, they couldn't seem to get enough of each other. She would come to the hospital for lunch, and they would sneak off to a motel on many occasions. They spent most of their time together and less with friends and family members. They were clearly in love and very happy. After 2 years, they got married. He began to spend more time at the hospital, and she would come home from work and wait up for him. He worked long hours; when they were together, they were by themselves. Six months later, Jan became pregnant. Although they were not planning to start a family just yet, they were pleased to be expecting a child. Jan reduced her working hours to part-time, and she began spending time shopping and planning for the new arrival. He continued to work late shifts at the hospital, and she was often not there when he arrived home during the day for a few hours of sleep. At the same time,


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according to each of them, there was a precipitous decline in their sex life and other physical intimacies. They hugged and kissed less and rarely held hands in public. They didn't feel happy together anymore. Jan and Jared came to a therapist 6 weeks after he admitted that he was having an affair at work. He said that he didn't love Jan anymore and that the thrill was gone from their relationship. She was extremely upset about his behavior but acknowledged that she had also been having second thoughts about their relationship since she got pregnant. They wondered whether they could go on together. He •was unclear about whether he was willing to give up his new relationship. Comparison with the cocreating couple. Although Jared and Jan experienced "true romance" at the beginning of their life as a couple, they were obviously unable to sustain these feelings. They are a romantic couple that have lost their feelings of closeness. The problem with this type of couple is that either the intensity of their early feelings burns them out or they are unable to make the transition to a new cocreating way of relating and committing in their partnership. Then one or both of the partners may go on to find another romantic relationship with a new partner. Although romantic feelings are definitely a part of the cocreating couple, it is not their all-consuming passion. A totally lovesick couple would have a difficult time dealing realistically with outside pressures. Like Romeo and Juliet, they might naively and inadvertently destroy the relationship by failing to create more options for behaving. By contrast, Carol and Ravi, the cocreating couple mentioned a bit earlier, while very much in love, were still able to deal with the obstacles and transitions in their lives in an effective manner. Rather than isolate themselves, as many romantic couples do, they invited family members and friends to support their couple. They created a balance of time together and time separately to deal with their own families and needs. Instead of dwelling on feeling jealous when Ravi spent time with his family without her, Carol supported it as part of their couple vision and worked on her own individual and their joint projects.

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The Role-Defined Couple Many couples begin their relationship with a sense of mutual purpose and teamwork. After a while, however, the roles they play may not be to their liking. This situation is most commonly often reflected in a common couple pattern that we call roledefined; it is marked by the individual roles of one dominant member supported by the other partner behind the scenes. One person agrees to support the other in return for some present or future consideration. When one spouse is involved in politics, the business world, graduate school, or professional or even recreational sports, the other member works to maintain the household financially or domestically so that the other can concentrate on making his or her impact in the world. This way of relating often persists over a long period—even a lifetime. Sometimes he is the CEO of a major company and she is "the hostess with the 'mostest,'" or she is the world-renowned physician while he stays home to raise the children. These couples often appear to be traditional in that it is usually the wife who is called on to provide the support, putting her husband through school or staying at home with the children. Our culture tends to force individuals into these roles. Parents may teach girls to grow up to "stand by their man" and may use themselves as an example: "You know, I wanted to develop my own career, dear, but I knew that my job was to support your father like my mom supported my dad's business, even though she didn't want to." Role-defined couples often lack a basic understanding about the level of cooperation and mutuality needed to establish their couple as an entity in and of itself. The goals and needs of one person are placed over those of the other—and they are often accompanied by a sense of unfairness and sacrifice. One person is sacrificing, not for the couple, but for the goals and aspirations of the other. It is as though one partner is standing behind the other, being supportive but with his or her own progress blocked or impeded. Role-defined couples may present to the therapist in a number of ways. Some have had a supportive relationship for many years before concerns alerted either of the partners they were in trouble. This couple often comes to therapy when the rules have


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changed, an agreement has been broken, or an unspoken dissatisfaction has come to light. The supporting partners may realize that the agreement to switch roles at some point (to go back to school or work on a career) is not going to happen, and they feel cheated or betrayed. In other couples, the supporting person had expected to be able to remain supportive indefinitely, but has had a change of heart or become burned out. In any event, the supporter may no longer be willing to toil without acknowledgment or appreciation. On some occasions, the supported partner needs the other now that they have renegotiated their goals. This kind of couple may have difficulty and want to change the "rules" to make the system seem more fair. Consider the following case: Case example. Marion and Zack met as undergraduates during college. They dated for 2 years and were married following graduation. Zack enrolled in medical school, and Marion took a job in a day-care center to help pay the bills and pay Zack's tuition. The medical school experience was difficult and timeconsuming for both Marion and Zack. They both worked hard and tried to spend as much time together as they could. Although Marion wanted to continue her own education by getting an MBA and starting a business career, she deferred her plans to support Zack. He promised then that when his residency was finished and he had more time, she could then return to school while he was making enough money to support them. They decided that they would postpone having any children until Marion was out of school and working in her career. Marion and Zack came into marital therapy following their seventh anniversary. Marion said that if he did not come with her to see a therapist, she was going to leave. She was angry and impatient. Zack had finished his residency and was working in a practice. He was gone long hours, but felt that after a few years he would be established enough to cut back on his schedule. Marion felt that Zack's work was more important to him than their relationship and that he had broken his promise to her. He said he had only deferred his promise for a few extra years. He said she was being selfish and that she liked her current job anyway. Marion felt hurt and betrayed. She did like her job, but

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it was not the career that they agreed on when they got married. She had supported him all these years and wanted her chance now. He tried to get her to compromise or give up her threats to leave, but she would not. She said that his refusal to keep his promise about her further education made her question her love for him. Comparison with the cocreating couple. Unlike the role-defined couple, cocreating partners cooperate and support one another in a common task: to continually establish the goals of the life they share together. Cocreating couples live, work, and play cooperatively together, continuously discovering new things, evolving and experimenting with what is possible for their couple. They are defined by an ability to be adaptable and flexible. They see that expectations about their respective roles can be changed—if they choose to do so. They can create trust or new possibilities by agreeing to do so together, rather than depending on expectations from the past. The Independent Couple Increased emphasis on individualism has led to increased desires to remain independent and self-sufficient, while still being in a meaningful relationship. The combined wish to be together and independent at the same time has given rise to what we call the independent couple pattern. Professional or dual-career couples often exhibit this kind of pattern. They may be supportive of each other's endeavors but are primarily committed to their own. It is as though they stand back to back: They lean on each other to help each other be successful in the world but rarely turn to face one another or be together in an intimate way. To those who observe them from afar, they may appear to be productive, competent, and resilient. Within their relationship, however, they may feel distant, cold, and disconnected. The independent couple may be a dual-career couple in the same or different fields, with individual career aspirations. Two athletes, for instance, may not compete head-to-head in the same sport, but they lead competitive lives, each trying to be successful


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in their own right. Although the relationship may involve some cooperation, in the end it is the values of the individual that are preserved. The same is often true for couples in which each member desires to be successful in his or her own line of work. These couples often have two very successful members who perhaps do not even live together for periods of time while pursuing their careers and get together only periodically. They may share a house together but keep separate homes near their place of work. These kinds of relationships are often indicative of a failure to commit to the couple as an entity. Some partners fear that they will eventually be disappointed, so they develop an independent life of their own in case their relationship does not work out. Each may experience the freedom of having his or her own friends and his or her own accomplishments as a substitute for experiencing intimacy with each other. Even in distress, independent couples are often too busy to seek treatment or support. They may also be concerned about not upsetting the fragile balance with their partner that allows them to stay together and get most of their individual needs met; they may fear that therapy might force them to be more dependent and threaten their individual identities. When they do come for help, it is often because they have grown too far apart to gain much pleasure from each other's company, or one wants to move farther away to meet an individual career need. Case example. Cal and Judy, married 5 years, were in the same profession. They had met in graduate school and trained to be anthropologists. Their expertise within the field was somewhat different, but from the beginning they both wanted to teach college. They were initially attracted to each other because they were both smart and quick-witted. She loved his sense of humor, and he loved her ability to think deep and penetrating thoughts. While writing their dissertations, they lived together in a small apartment near campus. They had very little money and very little space for their possessions. Judy described it as "romantic poverty." They would envision their future when they would be married and teaching together and doing research abroad.

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Each worked diligently on his or her dissertation, trying to support the other while concentrating on his or her own work. Although they intended to finish at the same time and graduate together, Judy completed her research first. Cal became concerned that he might be left behind; but by working incredible hours at the last minute, he just made the deadline to graduate with Judy. When they came to couples counseling, Cal said that it was at that moment, when he felt the fear of being left behind and not being able to catch up, that he worried she might leave him because he didn't measure up. Following graduation, Cal and Judy began their search for jobs. They had always intended to get jobs in the same part of the country, get married, and settle into their dream life together. As fate would have it, Judy got an excellent job offer in a city where Cal could get only part-time work; Cal got an excellent offer to teach in a different city where there was no job for Judy. They came to therapy by mutual agreement to decide what to do. Judy felt that if they lived in different cities, their relationship could not survive. Cal was less sure about that but more worried about the current state of their couple. He did not want to risk losing a good opportunity for the sake of a shaky relationship. He felt that the warmth and intimacy between them was far less than he had experienced when they first got together. They decided to take jobs in separate cities, found it difficult to stay connected, and eventually divorced. Comparison with the cocreating couple. In a cocreating couple, individual accomplishments are still valued but are enjoyed by the couple together. If Carol and Ravi, for instance, had operated as an independent couple, they would likely have found other mates who would match their own needs, rather than keep on working to create new possibilities and solutions together. However, operating as a cocreating couple, Carol and Ravi had two wedding ceremonies, one in the United States and one in India, and invited his parents to both. If his parents would not attend either ceremony, they planned to visit them later in India. Out of their commitment to their couple, they resolved to keep creating new options and work on them together.


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In Helen and Jamie's case, it might have been easier for them to avoid their painful memories and start their lives over independently after the death of their son. Instead, they •worked through their grief together and looked for a way to get support for re-creating the excitement they had for their relationship before they had a child. By contacting people who knew them in the romantic stage of their relationship, they kept the primary focus on their couple rather than on their individual goals.

The Treatment of Common Couple Patterns: The Cocreating Perspective As mentioned earlier, none of the three couple patterns described above is necessarily dysfunctional. Most couples take on the above-noted behaviors of each of these three identities or types of patterns at various times in their relationship. Similar to individual disorders of personality, a couple pattern becomes problematic only when it becomes rigid and limits the range of possible behaviors. Like Darwin's notion of requisite variety, those species with the greatest range of possible behaviors are more likely to survive by learning both flexibility and choice. Cocreating couples learn to use a repertoire of ways of being together, depending on the situation or on what they would like for themselves and their couple. Any one of the couple patterns described above may be a viable option for the cocreating couple at a particular time. Understanding the rigid constraints of the romantic, supportive, or independent patterns of operating is important in helping couples to free themselves from getting stuck in the repetition of these common behaviors. An awareness of the variety of common patterns provides therapists with a foundation for helping couples develop a broad range of choices and possibilities in their lives together. Implementing the couple power model with any type of couple requires a unique perspective on the part of both the therapist and the clients. It might help to think of the cocreating couple as a designer relationship, created uniquely, step-by-step, by the

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two partners, with each of the elements manifesting in a way that is distinctive for each couple. Although neither the couple nor the therapist is necessarily striving to achieve any particular type of relationship, the partners are engaged in continually creating their life together as they go along. The new perspective or paradigm shift required may take some time to understand and follow. Both the therapist and the couple need to implement and maintain this change in perspective. Once this conceptual shift has been accomplished, the therapist must then help the couple learn how to design their relationship and to adapt it over time to meet their changing needs. Perhaps the key element of developing cocreating behaviors through the CPT model is the existence of a positive perspective. This approach is somewhat different from traditional notions in psychotherapy of psychodynamically oriented therapists and even behaviorists who focus primarily on maladaptive symptoms, mental disorders, and psychopathology. The popularity of the term codependent speaks to this point. It has the connotation of a passive, fixed, and negative pattern. The couple power model, however, embodies the active, positive approach of relating inherent in the term cocreating couple. Consistent with a more recent movement toward positive psychology, the focus in CPT is on the strengths rather than the weaknesses in the couple (de Shazer, 1991; Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). The couple's natural tendency toward healthy interactions is emphasized, rather than their inabilities or presumed deficits. Therapists who choose this point of view have the ability to operate from a position of "unconditional positive regard" for the couple (Rogers, 1961); then they can transmit the concept that the couple has the potential to choose to learn how to function in a cocreating way. As therapists we have a choice about the basic stance we wish to adopt: "To see people in terms of pathology or to see them in terms of competence is a matter of choice rather than of truth" (Durrant & Kowalski, 1993, p. 108). Rather than trying to fix what is "wrong" with the relationship, therapists with this perspective are able to look for what is possible and use what is going well for the couple. It is not about making a "bad" relationship into a "good" one, or making a "good" relationship better. Rather than concentrating on what


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is missing in the relationship, the therapist focuses on clearly identifying what goals the couple has and what they are willing to do to achieve them together. Obstacles that may be in the way of accomplishing their vision are identified and normalized as part of everyday life. They are not considered to be the cause of their problems. In fact, obstacles or other difficulties do not need to be described as problems at all. If therapists focus on the solution to a problem, the problem is still present in the background. Speaking in terms of possibilities enables the couple to bypass the negative space of a problem-focused mindset and create a clean, blank slate to work from together. This channels the energy in a positive direction within the couple and for the therapeutic process as well.

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3 Commitment he cornerstone of CPT is the establishment or reaffirmation of commitment to the relationship. Without a solid commitment, none of the other tasks of the Four Cs are truly accomplished. Without this commitment, the best a therapist is able to do is act as a mediator between two separate parties. Like Erikson's (1950) first stage of development, basic trust, commitment is essential to the continuing growth of the couple. As the cornerstone of individual development is built on basic trust, so almost all positive functions in couple derive from a basic commitment. Without it, the health and life of the couple are in jeopardy. Embarking on a relationship without a strong commitment is like going on a major expedition without a reliable map: The travelers—both the couple and the therapist—are likely to get lost. The truth of the matter is, however, that many of the couples we see in therapy, even those who have been together a long time, have never accomplished this primary task of establishing a strong base of commitment. People are usually not even aware that they need to have a map, or committed direction, for their relationship, or that they should consult it regularly to make sure they stay on their desired path. When this kind of commitment exists in a couple, both the therapy and the couple relationship stand a much higher likelihood of success. As Cordova and Jacobson discovered in their research, "If the couple is committed

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to each other, and to trying to work things out, the prognosis for the success of therapy is good" (1993, p. 489). If they are still testing out their partner's qualifications as a mate, they are likely to run into trouble. Traditional couples treatment often begins with the question of the partners' commitment to one another. However, as mentioned in the introduction, if not managed properly, this may lead to unproductive expressions of doubt about feeling sufficiently in love with each other. The couple power model, however, operates less from the issue of feelings about commitment to the individual and more from the perspective of a shared commitment to what is possible for the couple as a unit. The focus is more on creating commitment to the single entity couple than on just meeting the needs of the individuals. "Each individual act is a couple act. The individuals, in coming from their being as couple, acknowledge the presence of the other in their being, thus in everything they do" (Huber, 1993, p. 5). The commitment is conceived of and presented in CPT as dedication to the couple as an entity, not to the individual person. This is consistent with John Welwood's notion of a couple's "conscious commitment" that "emerges organically from the relationship's own ripening" (Welwood, 1990, p. 88). Without a sense of common purpose, the couple is at risk. The lack of a joint commitment may, in fact, be the reason that cohabitating couples report low levels of satisfaction and do not tend to survive (Nock, 1999). They may put their idealized expectations of each other over their dedication to the relationship. The commitment task of the Four Cs is not designed to keep couples together no matter what the cost. That is codependency, not cocreating. Sometimes, after working hard on the relationship in good faith, even cocreating couples find the best choice for them is to dissolve their union. The intention of the couple power model is to give people every opportunity to examine all the possibilities for preserving their relationship, rather than just giving up on it as so many couples do. People often get into a destructive pattern of serial marriages, trying over and over again without ever really knowing how to commit to make a relationship work over time. The task of

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commitment in CPT provides an alternative for serial relationships and gives support for dealing with the inevitable difficulties and frustrations that arise in a relationship. As Hudson and O'Hanlon (1991) stated, "We encourage couples not to stay together and be miserable, but to work actively on making their relationships satisfying while staying through the times when they feel discouraged" (p. 167).

Background Work: The Concept of Commitment to the Couple as an Entity As we have explained, commitment is a necessary condition for successful couples therapy and for a couple to be healthy and high-functioning. The first goal in treatment is to make sure that partners are committed to their couple as an entity and committed to therapy as a way to establish and maintain commitment. Commitment is the stable platform for the rest of treatment. The perspective of the couple as a committed unit is crucial to any further work, so this issue must be handled early on in the therapy. Without commitment to a joint vision, the couple is likely to get caught up in notions of unrealistic expectations about the "perfect partner." They may start destructive discussions about what's wrong with themselves, each other, or the relationship. Rather than trying to find the ideal partner, the focus should be on creating the ideal relationship. Consider the example of Beth, a middle-aged wife and mother of two teenagers, who came into therapy to deal with the issue of her lack of sexual desire. She had been through several years of relatively unproductive individual therapy, which she described as "a crutch to help her get over things." Real progress occurred only when her husband came in with her for couples therapy, and they created a commitment to examine and work on the issue of sexuality in their relationship as their joint responsibility. She told her husband that she felt guilty and hopeless, and he shared that he felt angry and confused. Once they took on their sexual life as a committed act of their love for each other,

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rather than as her problem, they were able to make progress with sex and many other areas of their life. They went through a program of sex therapy together, and Beth began to initiate and enjoy sex more often. As couples therapists, how do we get our clients to take on the perspective of couple and create commitment to couple as an entity? First, we need to create our own commitment and vision for the couple; without this, the therapy is likely to drift on, without a clear direction. An important question to ask at this point is how to tell if there is genuine hope for a couple. (By this, we mean a real possibility rather than passive hopefulness.) One clue is the feelings expressed by each partner. If there is a great deal of sadness or ambivalence expressed about ending the relationship, this is often a sign that the partners are open to considering some other possibilities for the couple. The next step is to clarify early on in the therapy the importance of being committed by asking each member of the couple to verify his or her commitment to the relationship and to the therapy. If either person is unsure about committing to the relationship, he or she may agree to work in couples or individual therapy for a certain period on what might be possible for the relationship and to deal with their own anxiety or resistance. The more committed partner should also be supported in exploring ways to enroll his or her partner in the therapy. The couple might begin to develop a sense of commitment just by agreeing to work together in the therapy. The crucial step of committing to the therapy as couple may require one or both of the partners to give up something that is in the way of making such a commitment, such as drugs, alcohol, work and recreational priorities, or a current affair. It is our experience that if addiction or an affair is currently a factor for either partner, a true commitment cannot be made. The therapy is sabotaged from the start. So it is important to ask about affairs and addictions and to discuss the effects of such behaviors on the relationship. Then the therapist needs to be clear with the couple about what the therapy entails and about the commitment that it requires from them. If an addicted partner agrees to get treatment for an addiction, the couple entity supports the treat-

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ment and may work simultaneously in couples therapy on other issues. What sometimes happens is that one partner may agree to the conditions for the therapy and the other will not. The therapist and the couple both have the choice then of whether to continue the couples therapy or to continue in an individual format—or not at all. Consider the case of Terry, a problem drinker and single mother in her 30s with two children. When her partner, the father of her second child, refused to stop taking and dealing drugs, the therapist continued to work with her. She stopped drinking and was treated in a combination of individual and group therapy. The client continued to work on couple as well as individual issues in the context of her own therapy, making slow but steady progress. As with the couple described above, the therapist may need to focus on one or both partners individually for a while, in either individual or couple sessions, before the partners make a clear commitment to the couple as a unit. We would not go so far as to caution the marital therapist against "asking questions about love and commitment . . . until we clear away the problems" (Hudson & O'Hanlon, 1991, pp. 156-157). However, problems from an individual's past and unfinished business between the partners or from previous relationships may need to be addressed briefly before work on the couple's joint goals begins. Closure about feelings of loss from a failed relationship may need to be accomplished. One or both partners may need to work on issues from their family of origin, such as abuse, loss, or shame, to create a foundation strong enough to generate a commitment to the couple. In addition, one partner may need to apologize and be forgiven for some transgression by the other. Other individuals may need to strengthen their feelings of selfconfidence and self-differentiation in order not to fear being swallowed up by the relationship. A case in point is the young couple, Uri and Margot, who had been married for 5 years when the wife suddenly announced that she wanted a divorce. In exploring their feelings during the first few sessions, Margot revealed that she felt unimportant to Uri, similar to how she had always felt with her alcoholic father.

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T: Margot, Uri seems very surprised by what you just said about wanting a divorce. Describe your feelings. M: Uri seems so busy and concerned with work. He doesn't even notice me most times when he comes home. He just seems to ignore me when I am upset. He is my husband, and he shouldn't ignore me. If I am crying like last week, he should at least say something. U: I didn't realize this was such a big thing for you, Margot. When I was growing up people were always crying about something or other in my family, my sisters especially. I learned the best thing was to let them alone until they could get it together. T: What does being left alone mean to you, Margot? M: No one in my house growing up ever listened. Dad was always drinking; Mom was never around. When I saw Uri act like that, ignoring my pain, I decided that was enough for me, I wanted a divorce. U: Margot, I was leaving you alone to help you. I am so sorry. I didn't know that hurt you. I thought I was doing what was best. T: Margot, it looks like you were both acting on the basis of something from the past in your families. Do you believe Uri when he says he thought he was doing his best and is sorry? M: Maybe I am a bit oversensitive about this. I believe him when he says he is sorry.

Margot gained a new understanding of what was brought up from the past for both of them, and they were then able to continue working on the commitment to their relationship in the therapy. Whenever individual work is included in the therapy, it is crucial that the couple understand that it is being done consistent with joint commitment to the couple as an entity. It is like the metaphor of a teepee in the cocreating couple, with both partners working to be strong enough to contribute powerfully to the support of the total structure. Consider the case of Beth described

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earlier. After working on her sexual issues in couples therapy, she felt empowered to continue on her own in group therapy, which she had been uneasy about doing before. Now she saw herself "helping the couple by going to the therapy group/' which provided support for them both throughout her time in the group. Addressing individual issues in a couples session requires each partner to listen attentively to the other, with the intention of completely understanding the other's experience. Teaching some additional communication skills may be required to accomplish this step (see chap. 5, this volume). If the couple is still not willing to commit to the possibility of working together as a couple entity after a few sessions, it may be necessary to eliminate couples therapy as the treatment of choice at that time. However, our experience shows that though the partners may seem reluctant in the beginning, they are usually able to deal with the issue of a joint commitment to the goals of the couple. Moreover, we also find that even the background and unfinished-business work are generally most productive when approached in the therapy from a committed base of the couple as an entity. A case involving an initial inability to commit to the therapy is that of Carl and Jane, childhood sweethearts who had been married nearly 20 years and were now on the verge of divorce. They came in for therapy shortly after their daughter discovered that Carl was having an affair. Jane was furious with Carl, especially after he admitted to having affairs off and on during their entire marriage. They worked for a few sessions on the possibility of committing together as a couple to recreate their marriage; however, Jane did not feel that Carl had expressed his remorse sufficiently for her to commit to the couple or the therapy. Carl continued in individual therapy for a few months, working on his family-of-origin issues, particularly his longing for acceptance and warmth from distant parents who never said "I love you." The therapist coached him in how to invite Jane to come back into the therapy with him, and they then worked together with the couples therapist on establishing their commitment to the relationship. They continued their work in a couples therapy group, where they eventually recommitted to their marriage in a new and healthier way.

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Couple Visions and Statements Once the individual background work has been accomplished and the commitment to therapy as a unit has been established, the next step is to generate a powerful vision for the couple as soon as possible. This vision is a specific statement of what the individuals are committed to as a couple entity. Some couples come for therapy without much need for preliminary work on themselves as individuals and are prepared to begin working together on creating a vision for their relationship right away. They may just lack the skills and direction to accomplish this task. Most people, however, are either confused or unrealistic about how to create or sustain a vision of a successful relationship. Some are fortunate enough to have parents or grandparents who serve as positive models of couple. More often than not, however, these models do not apply to their current situation, or they may exist only as a negative representation of what the couple wants to avoid. They may have had parents who stayed together "for the sake of the kids" or out of duty to family or religious obligation, living lives of quiet or not-so-quiet desperation. No wonder they may not see much possibility in fostering a committed relationship, even with psychotherapy. Neither are many positive, realistic models presented in the popular media; rather, the media often act as an obstacle to couples by presenting either overly idealized models or tragic stories on talk shows, reality TV, soap operas, or films (see chap. 7, this volume). With this deficient cultural standard, couples often marry out of idealistic hope and focus on what is missing rather than on creating a positive vision of what is present or possible for their relationship. This results in the partners being unable to describe what the couple as an entity really means to them. Most marital therapists also lack the training or knowledge of how to direct couples toward accomplishing this crucial task of describing their couple vision. However, putting the couple's vision into words is a simple process to learn and is vital to the success of the therapy and to the relationship. As Welwood (1990) pointed out, "now that our society provides dream-fantasies instead of workable guidelines, each couple must forge their own vision to guide and inspire them to move forward ... a

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vision t h a t . . . is a much stronger bond than any hope or obligation" (p. 100). Successful businesses know the value of a mission statement for any project the organization undertakes. In a similar manner, the goals of an individual are much more likely to be accomplished if a clear statement of goals has been made ahead of time. The same kind of inspiration is possible for couples in proclaiming the goal or vision they are committed to reaching for their couple. Several clinicians have recently noted the importance of stating a vision in the practice of psychotherapy (Markus & Nurius, 1986). Marital therapists have found that "Making statements that highlight mutuality and connection. .. can create the same positive expectations that a good report from a physician creates" (Hudson & O'Hanlon, 1991, p. 44). Some authors focus on developing a vision of what to commit to work on in the therapy, either in a specific solution-oriented way (de Shazer, 1985) or in a more general, possibility-focused manner (Waters & Lawrence, 1993). The additional component in CPT that is crucial for the design and maintenance of the cocreating couple is that the partners continually create powerful statements of that vision themselves—in words that are unique and motivating to them as a couple. The cocreating couple is brought into being through the use of language. The power of language is the cornerstone of the couple power model. The statement of their goals is a verbal affirmation of the vision that the couple has for themselves. The focus on language is consistent with modern theories of narrative and brief therapy (Epston & White, 1995; Watzlawick et al., 1974; White & Epston, 1990) as well as neurolinguistic programming (Bandler & Grinder, 1979). It is also similar to the declaration process used in Couples Coaching Couples (see chap. 6, this volume). Using analogies from the couple's own experience can be useful in illustrating to them the power of language. For instance, biblical writings declared, "First there was the word." In the Emancipation Proclamation, Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves just by declaring their freedom. Declaring it to be so, brings it into existence. Such powerful statements inspire actions that might not otherwise have taken place. In the American Declaration of Independence, the

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Founding Fathers declared "these truths to be self-evident" and created a nation by writing it down for the world to see. Just as these documents proclaimed new truths to which supporters were committed, a couple proclamation has the power to create couple in the same way. President John Kennedy in 1962 declared the U.S. would have a man on the moon by 1969. His making this statement caused people to act to be sure this vision would be fulfilled. The positive effects of such inspiring statements have been demonstrated, in fact, to be "mirrored in actual changes in brain activity" (Van der Kolk, McFarlane, & Weisaeth, 1996). The act of creating a statement of the couple vision distinguishes what is true about the relationship for the partners. It enables them to be committed in the therapy to a common goal on which they have both agreed. The statement declares the partners to be couple. The proclamation of couple is not something to be accomplished by the therapist or the couple, but something for the partners to commit to and act in accordance with. Couple itself is looked at as something not to be achieved, but to be stated. Couple is not found or discovered through therapy; it is generated by the partners together from the beginning of treatment. It is not a thing to have, but a process to engage in. The creation of a couple vision is also an example of the practice of expanding from doing to being—the concept at the core of the couple power model. The proclamation is not designed to describe a set of behaviors or something to do; rather, it creates a positive vision and a way of being for the couple to "live into" together. As with other aspects of couple as an entity, this aspect of the commitment is sometimes difficult for clients growing up in Western culture to understand. The pressure of Western society to be productive at all costs creates a challenge for most couples (see chap. 7, this volume). "In the West, everything is so solid.... It has to be so concrete. In the East the world is more mysterious. ... Presence and existence can be more pervasive" (Wangyal, 2001, p. 271). Such a quality of pervasiveness allows for more openness and receptivity to visions and experiences that are less concrete. Once the couple's commitment is established through the development of a joint proclamation, a vision for their future is created. Such powerful statements inspire actions that might not

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otherwise have taken place. The therapist can help the couple reach their goal by keeping the focus on the words of the vision they have proclaimed. Keeping this dream in sight allows the partners to overcome short-term difficulties by looking at longterm possibilities. After all, civil rights activists do not abandon the goals of the Emancipation Proclamation whenever they encounter prejudice or injustice. They keep the greater vision alive to overcome the immediate problems. Couples with proclamations are able to do the same. Their commitment to being happy together is not derailed during or after therapy because of occasional setbacks.

Restating the Marriage Vows The therapist may point out that the first experience many couples have of proclaiming their vision and commitment to each other together out loud is their marriage vows. (Unmarried committed couples may have created similar statements.) They may have recited the traditional words used in weddings by countless numbers of couples: "To have and to hold, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, till death do us part." Other couples create their own personal statements, speaking the words with sincerity and passion on their wedding day—and perhaps never again after that. However, for many people, the wedding marks the end of the romantic relationship, rather than the beginning. For example, a young married woman reported in a session that after reciting their vows and kissing each other, her new husband said, "Thank goodness I won't have to do that again!" The marriage vows become obsolete memories, existing afterward as a sign of the paradox of marriage: The commitment made at the start of the relationship, to be connected and together forever, is continually questioned and often sabotaged by the very people who made it. Monica McGoldrick (1999) referred to this "[greatest] of all dilemmas of the life cycle [as] the existential dilemma" of coupling. "Marriage is the only family relationship that we swear is forever and the only one that we swear is exclusive; yet it is

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the one relationship that is least likely to be either exclusive or forever" (p. 231). One way to address this ironic dilemma is to invite the couple to remember and rediscover their wedding vows as part of the process of creating a couple vision in therapy. This may be done while reviewing the history of the couple—including how they met and what attracted them to each other. No matter how negative they may feel at that moment, recalling these events usually brings back positive feelings for each other. In this way, the therapist helps the couple get in touch with the attraction they originally had for each other. Then the partners identify the particular words in their vows that contributed to creating a positive commitment for their future together. A powerful method for working with marriage vows is to have the couple recite the vows and reenact that part of their wedding ceremony during a therapy session. A middle-aged couple, Fred and Donna, recovering from the wife's jealousy over a recent infatuation of the husband's, went a long way toward healing the anger and guilt by renewing their original marital vows in a session. The couple designed the ceremony and practiced their vows at home. Everyone, including the therapist, dressed up for the occasion and they went through the ritual in a formal way, ending with wine and song. Planning the ritual and restating their marriage pledge in the structured therapeutic setting brought an added significance to their words. Their experience is consistent with the power of creative ritual as used in a variety of contexts: "When we use ritual to assist us through change, we gain authority not only from the enactment of the ritual, but also from the intentional planning process . .. increasing balance and connection within ourselves, with each other [and] the world" (Beck & Metrick, 1990, pp. 6,9).

Exercises and Assignments The use of exercises during therapy, either in sessions or as homework, is very helpful in teaching all of the Four Cs. Several examples are presented here and in other chapters in this volume. Many therapeutic techniques include the use of exercises (Gor-

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don, 1993; Gottman & Silver, 1994; Hendrix, 1988; Werner-Davis, 1993), but it is also important that the therapist create the proper context for the exercise (Hudson & O'Hanlon, 1991). Which of the four tasks is the exercise designed to address, for example? Is the timing right for the exercise or does the task need to be addressed first? Is the couple clear that the exercise is not designed to fix something that is wrong, but to give them a tool to use responsibly for their continued well-being? Is there some other issue or obstacle underlying the current discussion that needs to be addressed first or that has caused failures in doing homework in the past? Have a clear commitment and proclamation been made? Has the couple "presenced" their proclamation before doing their homework assignment? Once such questions are answered and the intent is clear, exercises prove to be quite useful both during and after treatment. It may be because they get people into action. Hudson and O'Hanlon (1991) stated, ... when people spend their time and money to come in for a session, they deserve to have something to do differently when they walk out. We also think that therapy has been long on insight and understanding and a bit short on helping people take action to change their situations. Because of these views, we have both been adamant about giving task assignments to couples to carry out between sessions, (p. 68)

If they have been inspired by the rediscovery of their marital vows, the couple can be instructed to repeat them at home on a regular basis to reinforce the power of their commitment to each other. They could be given the assignment of noticing how they feel after saying and hearing the vows repeated aloud, and then sharing their experience with each other. The homework could include looking for parts of the vows that still inspire them, and which words don't seem to fit anymore. Some couples find that their original marital proclamations now sound like obligation (or even sacrifice), rather than vision or inspiration. At this point, the therapist may help the couple to identify and discard any limiting statements in their vows and create a new proclamation of their joint commitment.

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A first step in developing this new proclamation may be to suggest that the couple update and rewrite their wedding vows in a way that more powerfully supports their relationship in the present. This was done with a young couple, Gwen and Jeff, both of whom were in psychotherapy for the first time. They had been married for only 3 years, but this was Gwen's second marriage and Jeff's third. Jeff complained that Gwen had been demanding and irritable over the past few months. She said she did not feel close to Jeff anymore. They argued constantly over every little thing and could not remember the last time they had fun together. The tension at home was so great that neither of them wanted to come home from work. When they were at home, they avoided eye contact and retreated to separate parts of the house. T: I know that you have been together for 3 years. That might seem like a long time. Do you love each other? [Both nod tentatively, looking at each other.] So what seems to be the problem now? J: I'm pretty sure we still love each other and we do communicate [they were sitting, however, at the opposite ends of a large couch], but we seem to argue so much. It is discouraging that we can't seem to get along. G: I don't feel close to Jeff anymore. Things have really changed. I am always afraid we will wind up fighting. T: So if things have changed, it must have been different before. Why did you get married in the first place? J: When we got married, we were in love and imagined spending the rest of our lives together. Everything seemed so exciting and positive. T: At that time, what did you expect your marriage to be like in 3 years? G: I thought we would share everything and be intimate and show our love. J: We would be having a lot of fun doing things together, going on trips, picnics, spending Sunday mornings in bed snuggling and reading the newspaper.

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As they spoke of the dreams they had when they married, they began to smile. The mood in the room began to lighten. Somehow, they had gotten sidetracked from the vision they shared only 3 short years before. When they decided to get married, Jeff and Gwen shared a commitment to the future they would have together. Partly because of a history of other failed relationships, they began to fear that the future they wanted would not come to pass. They wondered now if they had made a mistake in getting married. As they felt less commitment to each other, they questioned each other's behavior. Was he really committed to her or just passing time? Did she love him deeply or was she just using him for money and security? They began to doubt each other, and themselves. Once they listened to each other to feel assured, but now they were suspicious of motives that might be behind what was said. T: It sounds like you had a great vision of what your marriage would be, but somehow you got off track. As you got away from your dream, you lost trust and doubted your commitment. What if you could re-create those feelings or create a new marriage for yourselves? G: Maybe we could start over, maybe knowing each other a little better. T: Let me suggest that for homework you create some new vows about how you want to be with each other now. Write them down this week and read them in the next session. J: I am not sure it would work, but I think I would write different vows now. I have a different feeling about what is important in a relationship.

Before the next session even began, the change was noticeable. They entered the room arm in arm and laughing. The therapist led them through an in-session ceremony. They told the therapist how much fun it had been to rewrite new vows as they ate cake and removed rice from their hair. They agreed that they would like to do this exercise regularly, perhaps every week.

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Designing a Couple Proclamation Even if the couple is satisfied with their original wedding vows, the next step is to create a new vision, or couple proclamation. We define a couple proclamation as a brief statement of commitment agreed to by a couple that is unique to their relationship and that regenerates a powerful vision for their life together through a clear, forceful, and authoritative statement used in Couples Coaching Couples. A couple declaration is a similar type of statement (Huber, 1993; Couples Coaching Couples Manual, 2001). Proclaiming the couple into being is the groundwork and life force of the cocreating couple. It is the expression of commitment, the First C. When a couple's commitment is not present, it is evidenced by an inability to create a proclamation. Focusing on creating this statement early in the course of therapy is essential to move forward in treatment. To accomplish this step, the therapist must prepare the couple to engage in a joint venture to create a single entity called couple. The process can be compared to giving birth to a child, a being that they are conceiving through language rather than biology. It begins with an experience of excitement and anticipation. Over time, they will care for this being they have created—cherish it, nurture it, support and empower it to stand on its own as a unique entity. In this sense, it is "every bit as real as a body, and we should treat it so and respect, acknowledge, and care for its being properly" (Huber, 1993, p. 2). Proclaiming a new vision for a relationship may be likened to what Eric Berne (1961) referred to as creating a "psychological remarriage," the object of which is "to preserve the formal contract if possible, while at the same time allowing each party to obtain as much satisfaction as possible.... As each spouse emerges in a new form, an opportunity is offered for a psychological remarriage if they both desire it" (p. 236). The therapist guides the partners through the steps of giving birth to their new couple entity. Like a midwife, the therapist coaches the couple to use their own strengths to manifest their unique creation. This approach assumes that any unfinished business that may be interfering with the commitment to this process has been completed. Any new issues that may inter-

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fere with fulfilling the task of commitment will need to be addressed as they emerge. Following are the basic principles and procedures for assisting the couple with the design of their proclamation. Positive Statement for the Present Moment, Not Wish for the Future The first step in creating a proclamation is to explore a description with the clients of their ideal couple for the present moment. To help them move from using their original wedding pledge to creating a new vision and proclamation for their life together, the therapist has to orient them to focus more on the present and less on the past or future. The idea is not to try to fix or recreate what the couple envisioned in the past, but rather to create a whole new possibility. The proclamation may be viewed as a dream come true—one that is happening right now. One way to access the couple's dreams is through asking the "miracle question" (Berg & de Shazer, 1993). For example: "If a miracle occurred in your relationship now that enabled it to be exactly as you wanted it to be, what would it look like?" The therapist brainstorms with the couple together during the session. Later, at home, the couple shares about both their individual and joint visions for their relationship. Responding to the miracle question was the turning point in therapy for an elderly couple, who were both married for a second time. They were so discouraged about their relationship that all they could do was talk about divorce. In discussing what a miracle would look like for them, they both came up with the same answer almost immediately. They saw themselves loving and supportive of each other as they faced the current difficulties in their lives. Tears came to their eyes, and they very quickly moved to creating the powerful couple proclamation "We are soul mates for each other." In brainstorming the content of their proclamation, be sure to steer the couple in a positive direction. They need to frame their vision in terms of what they appreciate about each other and their couple, rather than what they want to avoid. Studies of hypnosis have shown that the brain does not respond to verbal

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cues given in the negative form; instead, the brain registers everything but the not of a statement, thereby reinforcing the negative message (Bandler & Grinder, 1979). So a couple should proclaim, for example, "We are joyful" rather than "We are not angry." This positive direction for the vision statement can be facilitated by having the couple first acknowledge what they appreciate about each other. The therapist should also direct the couple to keep their proclamation brief and to the point, that is, one relatively short sentence. If it contains too many words, it will lose its impact, and the couple is likely to forget it. The therapist could assist the couple in phrasing their proclamation by taking notes during the session of particularly powerful words and phrases that they use while sharing their acknowledgments and exploring the description of their vision. These are then offered back to them for possible inclusion in their final statement. For example, during a session with John and Linda, a young couple in the middle stage of their therapy, the therapist tracked the following process: They were feeling "up against the wall," like they needed to "get over a major hurdle." In looking for inspiration, they recalled a friend who had "climbed to the summit" of a mountain. The therapist read these phrases back to them, and they came up with the statement "We're climbing to the summit." When they tried repeating that statement together, they said it felt like they were too far away from reaching their goal. They then modified it and came up with the proclamation "We're at the summit." Other sources for a proclamation could be important projects that the couple wants to accomplish, or particular areas of their relationship they would like to impact, such as sexuality or finances. The partners might also be encouraged to think of songs or poems or other couples that inspire them and look for what it is about them that they find exciting. The notion of a dream come true may also be used more literally by exploring the couple's night dreams, looking for clues that they might not notice in their waking life. By sharing their dreams, the couple may get ideas for a proclamation that their conscious minds may have overlooked. We have noted elsewhere that dreams can truly open up new awareness about feelings for loved ones and

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provide powerful metaphors for couple proclamations (KochSheras & Sheras, 1998). One hard-working young couple, Claire and Ron, found this to be the case when they were looking for ways to relax and have fun with each other. After Claire shared a dream with Ron about seeing him wearing a pink shirt and tickling him as he giggled, they created the proclamation "We are tickled pink." They went out together, bought Ron a pink shirt, and repeated their proclamation daily, creating more fun and spontaneity in their lives than they had experienced in months. Whatever way a couple may access the content of their proclamation, the goal is to come up with an inspiring and clear description of their joint vision or current intention. They should be encouraged to state it as existing in the present moment—as a declaration of fact, rather than as an unfulfilled desire from the past or wish for the future; for example, "We are soul mates for each other" rather than "We want to be soul mates for each other." Often couples begin by saying what they want rather than affirming who they are, or what they have or can do together. They can be reminded that the Declaration of Independence is grounded in the proclamation that "All men are created equal" rather than "We want all men to be created equal." A statement loses its impact and creates tension between what is and what could be when it is expressed as a wish or hope for the future; making a proclamation as a commitment in the present tense circumvents the unfulfilled desire and allows for effective action in the moment. Couples often recognize that the intention and effect of this way of speaking is similar to what many people call an affirmation, that is, a strong, positive statement that something is already so.

Couple Rather Than Individual Focus The focus of the proclamation is on the couple, not the individual. A key element in producing an effective proclamation is to make sure the couple phrases it in terms of the perspective of we— not I. Although the statement does not necessarily have to include the word we, the use of the plural pronoun clarifies that it reflects

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the intention of the couple as an entity, rather than a task for either individual alone. No matter what issue or project they are dealing with, the proclamation empowers them to support each other in accomplishing it as a couple. Both partners take full responsibility for the situation and its resolution. This is the essence of the second of the Four Cs, cooperation, discussed in the next chapter. With this kind of collaboration, each individual may be able to accomplish things as a couple that would be less likely to happen if they tried them alone. What really matters is not the individual's success, but the results the couple has committed to create together. This way of viewing themselves may at first have some individuals feeling threatened by a loss of personal freedom or resentful of additional burdens; in fact, once the proclamation is made, we have found that each partner experiences his or her individual identity and commitment as even stronger than before. Sharon and Ron (who came in for therapy to deal with Sharon's anger and depression about feeling overwhelmed with taking care of their two children and his mother and grandmother) are a good example of the power of a couple versus an individual focus. After Ron joined the therapy, they quickly moved on to establishing the existence of their joint commitment and the creation of a couple proclamation. Even though Ron was not as disturbed by the presence of his extended family as Sharon was, they created a proclamation of "We back each other up one hundred percent." Immediately they both felt more hopeful and positive about their situation and their relationship. They were now in a strong position to begin exploring alternative possibilities together for caring for their children and relatives in more productive ways. Up until that time, they had made / statements, such as when Sharon had remembered saying to herself, "How am I going to handle it with a second child?" With the creation of their proclamation, they developed a new kind of speaking during the therapy session that we called couple-ease: ease created with a couple, not an individual, focus. A similar situation occurred with a married graduate student couple who both felt stressed about completing their doctoral dissertations. After that they sought help individually, they became more frustrated with their own work and with each other,

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so then they got help to work on their situation as a couple. They created the proclamation "We are creative and successful" and took on both dissertations as a joint responsibility, operating as if they were each coauthors of the other's dissertation. Then they were able to move forward and complete their work, without either one feeling resentful. Just as there is a wide range of couple personalities and goals, there is an endless variety of "we statements" that couples can create for themselves. Various powerful couple proclamations that couples with whom we have worked have created over the years include the following: n D D D n a D D n

We value and appreciate each other. We trust our couple. We are a playful dance. We are simply irresistible! Our couple is our source of love and acknowledgment. You are everything to me. The magic is back! It's a privilege being a couple. We are a winning team.

Expression and Tone of the Proclamation Once the couple have settled on a proclamation that works for them, the next step is to have them state it together in the session. They should be directed to face each other, look into each other's eyes, and possibly hold hands while stating the proclamation with sincerity. The purpose of saying the proclamation together during the session is twofold. It is imperative to see if the proclamation is, in fact, the most effective statement for the couple at the moment. The second purpose is to enable the couple to experience the proclamation powerfully as a joint creation in the moment, one that they can believe in and relate to as genuine. It's not just what they say; it's how they say it. The therapist can reassure the couple that for the sake of the effectiveness of the proclamation, it is fine to speak as if the statement is true, or to "fake it till you make it." Encourage them to try it on like a new coat and see how it feels before they buy it. The therapist's own enthusiasm will motivate the couple to get excited about it

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and to overcome their discomfort or skepticism. Neurolinguistic programming emphasizes the importance of the therapist's role in this regard. "Your ability to see a difference depends on how forceful you are in amplifying what you are getting. ... The more expressively you access, the more expressively they will respond" (Bandler & Grinder, 1979, p. 106). The couple will know if they have stopped struggling and have "made it" regarding their proclamation when it inspires and empowers them in the moment to see new possibilities for their relationship. The therapist will be able to verify that an acceptable proclamation has been achieved when both partners appear visibly moved or excited by it, and do not appear to be repeating it automatically or just to be going along with the other one. A good measure of success is asking the couple, "Does this light you up?" They may be instructed to say their proclamation together several times, emphasizing different words in turn each time and noting which version has the most mutual impact. Specific signs and cues in the partners' verbal and nonverbal behavior indicate when they are most directly experiencing the power of their proclamation. As the couple states their proclamation together, the therapist should look for sudden signs of elation, being moved, or dramatic changes in physical posture, such as the face changing color, the tone of voice changing, or the body shifting or moving forward in the chair. Emotional cues, such as smiling or crying, and signs of renewed affection, love, or calm contentment in the couple as they repeat their proclamation are revealing as well. Any of these behaviors could be an indication that a new reality for the relationship is being created, beyond the normal way of operating for the couple. The therapist will probably notice a perceptible shift in his or her own internal experience during this exercise as well. This experience has been described as "a certain 'presence' in the room" when the proclamation that is being stated is "the one" (Couples Coaching Couples Manual, 2001, Section 3.2). If either the therapist or the couple is not convinced of the power of their proclamation, the clients should be instructed to keep working on it until that power is present in both the words and the experience of how they are in the moment. It is important that neither the clients nor the therapist accept an inappropriate

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or unexciting statement just to have one, as doing so will solidify old patterns and retard progress on the subsequent tasks of the Four Cs. Sometimes it does not become clear until later on, when the therapy is not progressing as well as expected, that the proclamation is not appropriate. When this happens, •work with the couple to modify or completely change their proclamation. During the process, it may be necessary to complete some unfinished business that emerged in the course of working on the proclamation. The procedure of creating a vision together often uncovers some regrets or resentments that need to be clarified before a genuine commitment and an authentic statement can be found. Once these feelings are shared, the process of creating the couple proclamation generally moves forward quickly. It may take several attempts, but having a proclamation that works is crucial to the success of the entire treatment. It was necessary to make several modifications before finding the right proclamation for Carl and Jane, the couple described earlier that came to therapy after the discovery of Carl's affairs. Their first proclamation, "We are a faithful, fulfilling, fun couple/' felt like "too much of a leap," they said. It also contained the subtle connotation of fixing something that was wrong—the infidelity. That problem eventually sabotaged both the proclamation and their progress. They changed it the next week to "We put each other first." A few weeks later they reported, "We didn't feel like saying that one either." After some inquiry in their session, Carl revealed that he had never heard "I love you" from his parents. They then added the phrase "We love each other" to the beginning of their proclamation. That worked for them for quite a while. A few months later they decided they wanted to emphasize the power of couple in their proclamation, finally coming up with "We are a couple who comes first." This proclamation sustained them through many difficult times in therapy, as well as in their life together at home. Jane had a history of using sarcasm and making very cutting remarks to Carl. He often felt accused and cut down, especially when remarks were made in front of others. He reported feeling isolated, blamed, and unloved when that would happen. Whenever that happened, he had the desire to find love and support in other places and with other people. "I just don't want to be

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near her," he would say. With the help of their therapist, they were encouraged to repeat their proclamation to each other before going out with friends, and whenever he was feeling isolated or hurt by her remarks. They reported that the exercise helped them to feel more like a couple taking on the world together. Once the couple achieves a powerful statement of their proclamation, it is useful for the therapist to help them identify the physical experience of the excitement that it generates. This may feel awkward or difficult at first for both the therapist and the couple, as "most people are not oriented to learn from their internal experience, their somatic history" (Keleman, 1982, p. 95). However, after working with the process of creating proclamations for a while, both therapists and clients become more sensitive over time to the power of expression, both verbal and nonverbal. Therapists could help their clients locate their physical sensations, describe them clearly in words, and then use the particular sensation associated with the proclamation as a physical reminder of their commitment. The positive sensation, such as warmth or tingling, may subsequently be used as a cue or anchor to recall and reinforce the proclamation. "You can't not anchor. It's only a question of whether you do it in a useful way or not" (Handler & Grinder, 1979, p. 103). Both the couple and therapist may unwittingly be anchoring or reinforcing the couple's pain and suffering by giving more attention to it. The emphasis needs to be on the possibility of creating a positive vision together. The design and maintenance of couple proclamations provide a systematic way to access and anchor the pleasant versus the unpleasant states of being a couple.

Keeping Proclamations Alive: Additional Exercises and Assignments Once a powerful couple proclamation has been established, it must be reaffirmed regularly to keep alive the commitment behind it. The couple must be helped to see that what keeps their relationship fulfilling is not that a proclamation was stated, but that it continues to be repeated over time. The statement of the commitment to the relationship must be represented as not the

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end of the work on the relationship, but as the beginning. Like most any skill it will take ongoing repetition and practice of the behavior to keep it working effectively. The analogy of an opera singer learning an aria, for example, may be used: It is not enough to just sing it once; it needs to be rehearsed over and over again to keep it fresh and powerful. It takes hard work, but it is what the singer loves and is committed to doing. In a similar manner, the couple should be guided and encouraged by the therapist to find several simple ways to reinforce their proclamation as a labor of love. Some basic principles and suggestions for keeping proclamations alive and effective in a couple's life are included below. Repetition and Practice Once a couple proclamation is created, the therapist may have the partners state it at the beginning of each therapy session. It is helpful to have them repeat it any time during the session when the experience of being couple is not present—such as if one partner is blaming the other or feeling resigned about the relationship. Doing so enables them to see the possibilities of using the proclamation outside of sessions as well. Remarkable results were achieved this way for Sharon and Ron, the couple struggling to deal with having Ron's mother and grandmother living in their home. After returning from their vacation, Sharon started a session by saying that she felt like giving up on their relationship. S: It really makes me mad that after all this therapy things don't seem to be getting better. T: What do you mean, Sharon? S: Well, this past weekend we spent time with our families, and it just seems like there is no respect for anyone. Maybe I notice most that Ron does not seem to respect me. R: I noticed it too. All we seemed to do was complain about other people. T: I want you two to stop for a minute and see if you think couple is present. Are you taking this issue on as couple?


S: I'm not sure what you mean. T: Try saying your proclamation together. R & S: We back each other up one hundred percent.

Repeating their proclamation immediately shifted their perspective to a cooperative joint inquiry into possible solutions. During the next session, they reported that they were saying their proclamation daily and that they were really listening to each other. As a result, they started talking about different living arrangements for Ron's mother and grandmother. They were truly living out their proclamation "We back each other up one hundred percent." In addition to reciting the proclamation together in therapy, the therapist should give the couple assignments to bring the act of speaking it into the routine of their daily lives. For example, they could recite it together in the morning and evening, or leave it as a message on each other's answering machines and e-mail. It may seem awkward at first, but with continued practice it soon becomes a part of the couple's ongoing vocabulary and behavior. They may come to see it as a daily affirmation or mantra, a phrase or word spoken repeatedly during meditation. The repetition gives a renewed sense of calm, consistency, and stability. Just as brushing one's teeth works best if it is done daily, the same is true with saying a couple proclamation. Saying the proclamation is not a matter of whether or not they feel like doing it; it's a matter of choice and commitment to couple. The partners can choose to be controlled by their feelings or by their vision. Choosing to follow their commitment rather than their feelings creates couple power. By taking committed action, the partners eventually come to see their feelings as something they have, not what they are (e.g., feeling depressed versus being depressed or feeling angry versus being angry). Rather than waiting to feel something before they say it, they are encouraged to say it first (proclaim it) and take action, knowing that the feelings will follow. It is important to point out during the course of therapy that to maintain therapeutic gains and their cocreating relationship, couples will need to create new proclamations continually over the life of their relationship. This ongoing practice will support

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them in keeping their commitment alive and meeting the challenges they will inevitably face. Once is definitely not enough where the commitment to couple is concerned. Some couples may feel that they shouldn't need to do this, especially if their couple has already made progress. Their romantic ideals will tell them that once they have worked things out, they should just live happily ever after. They may also think that they are saying something is wrong with their relationship if they need to keep re-creating their commitment to it. We have found, however, that once they start creating new proclamations on a regular basis, they soon come to see that the opposite is the case: The more attention they give to revitalizing their relationship, the more it strengthens and reinforces the power of their commitment. Variety is definitely the spice of life here. This was the case with the couple discussed earlier, John and Linda. When their original proclamation ceased to inspire them, they created "We're at the summit" as their second proclamation. The clue that they needed a new proclamation was when they started a session saying they "didn't know what to talk about today." They were still having a lot of difficulties in their relationship, and it became clear that they felt, in their words, "up against the wall" and needed a new proclamation to motivate them to get past this impasse. Just the process of creating a new proclamation reenergized and motivated them to commit to get past their wall. Several months later, they hit another impasse and created the proclamation "We are moving forward." Only then did they really begin to open up and go deeper into the more difficult areas of their relationship, such as issues involving drug use and sex. A couple in their late 40s, Ray and Laurie, began to consider divorce when Laurie decided to go to graduate school on the other side of the country. They used several proclamations over the next year to get through that challenge. They first created the proclamation "We are home for each other," which reinforced their commitment and enabled them to feel comfortable with their plan of having Ray stay in the home they loved during the first semester of Laurie's time away at school. A few months later, they created the proclamation "We are creative, fearless adventurers" to support them in figuring out ways to manage

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their long-distance relationship until they could live together again. Later in the year, they created the proclamation "We are an expansive couple and proud of each other." Each of these proclamations helped them to keep the possibility of their relationship alive during that difficult time of separation in their lives. Concrete Representations: Activities and Exercises Once the couple has learned to verbalize their proclamation regularly in a meaningful way, the therapist may want to help them add some kind of concrete representation to it. Adding some cues for touch, smell, taste, or sight will potentially increase the power of the proclamation in the couple's life. Without such practical reminders, the couple's vision—like a dream—is likely to disappear. People seem programmed to remember negative events or feelings for a long time; positive incidents and experiences, on the other hand, are too soon forgotten. Systematically creating a variety of ways to foster and enhance positive experiences is thus vital for maintaining satisfying relationships over time. Research and clinical observations have shown that people use a variety of sensory modalities in relating to the world, with one or more modalities more highly developed than others (Bandler & Grinder, 1979; Lankton, 1980). Although reciting the couple proclamation aloud is important to do, the auditory modality will not always be people's "primary representational system" (Cameron-Bandler, 1985). Particular tastes or smells activate associations and memories of past events for many people; a special kind of touch or image may also evoke strong feelings or memories. When these sensory responses are used systematically, they are a powerful resource for keeping couple proclamations alive. The therapist should carefully observe the behaviors and words used by the partners to see which modalities they seem to prefer. Even without special knowledge of specific sensory patterns, the therapist may encourage the couple to explore a wide range of possible ways to make concrete representations of their couple proclamation.

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A simple but effective addition to a verbal proclamation, for example, is including some kind of touch or other nonverbal action along with the statement. One couple added a wink and a high five, another included a hug, and others have held hands and looked into each other's eyes when repeating their proclamation. Food is also particularly significant to some people. One couple, for example, made a regular practice of going together to a special Indian restaurant that the husband loved as a way of reinforcing the power of their commitment and proclamation. Some couples also look for a special kind of music, flowers, perfume, or scented massage oil that relates to and enhances their proclamation. The visual sensory modality provides the most possibilities for concrete representations of proclamations. Most people rely on sight for a great deal of their information, and "out of sight, out of mind" definitely applies here. Creating some kind of visual display of their proclamation will help the couple keep it present in their lives. It could be something simple, such as sticky notes with the proclamation displayed around the house, in the office or car, or on the screen saver of personal computers. A more elaborate display might take the form of a picture or collage the partners create together, using favorite photos, mementos, quotations, or magazine cutouts. Encourage them to bring it in to the next session, describe its significance, and then display it in a special place where it can inspire them at home. Just the process of working on the display clarifies and reinforces the couple's vision. It may also give them some more ideas of how to express their proclamation in a concrete way. One young couple with the proclamation "We are a safe harbor for each other" made a collage representing their proclamation and then got inspired to plan a sailing trip together. They also found in a catalog a plaque depicting a calm harbor, ordered it, and hung it in their entryway. Another couple included their 4-year-old daughter in the process of making a collage together about their proclamation "We are artists in everything we do"; they then hung it in their dining room, and all three recited it together every day—often at the instigation of their daughter. The therapist could also suggest that the couple create their display in the

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form of a mandala, a collection of symbols drawn or pasted inside a circle symbolizing wholeness and unity. This will further reinforce the notion of the couple as an entity. Another more internal way in which couples may bring the visual modality into play is to create a powerful image of themselves acting in accordance with their proclamation. This imagery technique has been described elsewhere as directed or creative visualization (Gawain, 1979) and guided imagery (Koch-Sheras & Sheras, 1998). In working with their couple proclamation, the partners develop a clear picture of what it looks like, "giving it positive energy until it becomes objective reality . . . experiencing] it as if it is already happening" (Gawain, 1979, p. 3). This process gives the couple a powerful shared context for their vision and builds confidence in what is possible for their future. One couple who were dealing with power and control issues came up with the proclamation "We are King and Queen ruling over our realm together." To get them started, the therapist had them visualize in the session being on their thrones jointly ruling their family as a single royal entity with shared power and benevolence. This image stayed with them as they continued to explore new ways of being couple. Any format or object for representing a proclamation that supports the couple's joint vision may be useful. No matter how the couple's commitment is phrased or represented, it is crucial that this essential step of creating a powerful statement of the couple's commitment is taken before moving on to the next task of the Four Cs.

Assessing Commitment Evaluating a couple for therapy is essential to determining if couples work will be effective and where to begin it. The questions in each category below are designed as guidelines to help the practitioner determine what work needs to be done in helping couples complete the task of commitment. The clinician may delete questions that are not needed or add others that may be useful for specific couples. The basic questions are those that are felt to be essential for evaluating the completion of the particular

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task; the additional questions are included to help the therapist evaluate progress toward completing the task. Questions can be answered individually at first, then by each person with both present, and finally answered together as a couple. This procedure is similar to that followed in a traditional sex therapy interview (Masters & Johnson, 1966). Similar guidelines and questions are included in subsequent chapters for each of the remaining Four Cs. Basic Questions 1. Describe your commitment to your relationship; describe your partner's commitment to the relationship. 2. What does commitment mean to you? 3. Describe how committed you are to working things out with your partner. Additional Questions 1. Do you believe in divorce? 2. Have you ever considered leaving your partner? Why? 3. How long have you been together? 4. How long does it feel like you have been together? 5. Do you wonder what it would be like to be in a relationship with someone else? 6. Are there things you could never forgive your partner for? 7. Are you able to trust your partner? 8. Do you believe in love at first sight? 9. Do you think wedding vows are silly or useless? 10. Do you often express your love for each other? These questions can be quite helpful in determining where to start therapy with a couple. If commitment is not present, for instance, it must be established first. Dalia and Max came to therapy not knowing whether or not they wanted to stay together. They had been dating ever since they met in college and now, 4 years later, were still unsure. During the Four Cs interview

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they said they were committed to the relationship no matter what. It surprised them a little to hear themselves say that. When a relationship appears to be a committed one, the next steps can be determined by examining the status of the couple's ability to cooperate, their communication skills, and the possibility of community support.

Conclusion If therapy moves prematurely into issues of how the partners are cooperating or communicating before the existence of commitment and the statement of vision are clear, progress will be limited. It may be necessary to redirect the therapy back to clarifying the couple commitment or proclamation at various times during the therapy. Even if nothing else is accomplished in the therapy other than the couple clarifying their commitment to their relationship, they will still have created a more productive way of relating. Sometimes couples realize from this process that one or both of them is not truly committed to a long-term relationship with their partner. This realization or admission helps them be more honest and realistic about their relationship, enabling them to either separate or redefine their couple in a healthier way. Sometimes creating a new proclamation helps a couple recommit to their relationship. This was the case with the couple who had the proclamation "We are King and Queen together." They returned to their therapist several years after they terminated marital therapy when they were entering retirement and having doubts about staying together. The therapist helped them clarify their commitment and create a proclamation consistent with their current concerns: "We are relaxing happily together forever." Bolstered by their proclamation, after just one session, they felt confident and motivated to take on their couple and the world again together as a team. When a couple creates a proclamation of their joint vision, they construct an arena where they are free to realize their potential together. If they cannot construct a joint vision, the couple likely will not survive. Therapists using the four Cs are not just apply-

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ing techniques to fix a dysfunctional relationship in the moment; they are fostering an ongoing, cocreating process. Rather than just giving clients fish to eat, as the old proverb goes, they are teaching them how to fish and nurture their couple with skills learned together.

Chapter

4 Cooperation stablishing commitment to being couple is only the beginning E of treatment. The next major task for a relationship and for therapy is putting commitment into practice. This behavior manifests through cooperation—the second basic component of the Four Cs and of the structure for a lasting relationship. Cooperation is a concept well known to many couples, but though it may be simple to talk about cooperating, it may not come naturally or be easy to accomplish. People think they know how to do it, but they usually do not. People are generally socialized more toward self-interest than cooperative action in our culture. Contemporary society's emphasis on individualism undermines the practice of cooperation. Competitiveness or the desire to be right often stands in the way of true teamwork. Cooperation, however, is a necessary part of a happy and healthy marriage or relationship. Helping clients learn how to cooperate effectively is an essential part of CPT. Many couples believe that compromise is a desired goal or outcome. However, as we discussed in chapter 1 (this volume), compromise usually means that one or both participants must give up something that they want. The fear of having to give in or lose causes resistance to cooperation. They become resigned to compromise as a dire necessity and end up resenting it. True compromise can be a form of cooperation, however, when a couple focuses on developing new behaviors that are mutually 97

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gratifying and positive. Giving something up then is seen as creating something new and different. Neither person feels that he or she has been exploited or used. This sort of cooperative compromise leads to creating new possibilities and the proverbial win-win solution. Cooperation means more than just agreeing, compromising, or getting along. In the CPT model, cooperation is the particular skill that allows people to act powerfully to facilitate the accomplishment of a shared goal. It includes (a) practicing teamwork, (b) being able to count on the other person to make and deliver on his or her promises, and (c) developing a facility for making clear requests, openly and without hidden meanings or expectations. Some of these skills come naturally to one or both partners, but couples who wind up in a practitioner's office often need help learning how to cooperate in a satisfactory and productive way. The procedures for facilitating the development of this skill in therapy are described below. As is the case with commitment, the partners' feelings are less significant than the "bond, which is forged through the development of shared goals" (Powers, 2000, p. 128). Marital teamwork is directed toward goals or ideals that go beyond the feelings the partners have for each other, but the couple's aims still include and enrich their feelings for each other. When spouses work cooperatively toward some end, or to fulfill some purpose, their cooperation draws them together and enhances their emotional experience. At the same time, their shared goals give their relationship a direction and a significance that transcends their emotional experience, (p. 129)

Background Work: The Concept of Teamwork It may sound simplistic to say that something as important as a marriage or committed relationship has a great deal in common with playing a game, but true partnerships have many similarities to teams. The word game does not imply superficiality, only the fact that games have goals and rules. A game involves certain

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objectives and rules that direct how they can be achieved, and teamwork practiced according to the rules moves the couple toward success. Adherence to these rules determines many successful outcomes. During dating and relating as a couple, rules are often not clear or explicit, so success may not be easy to attain. Understanding the rules and having them set out in a clear and understandable way enables the couple to develop effective "plays" and facilitates more positive outcomes. Making sure that the goals of the game, as well as the rules and plays, are clear to all members of the team is essential for success in any team endeavor, especially in a relationship. Yet therapists consistently see members of a couple who do not want to tell their partners what they expect of them in relation to meeting the goals of their relationship. This situation is often caused by the fear of finding out that there isn't much agreement on the goals of the union, which threatens the commitment; or the couple may realize that there are less positive feelings between them now than when they started their relationship. For instance, a couple may come to realize that one partner wants children and a family whereas the other may not. Their ability to cooperate regarding financial planning or even deciding where to live and the choice of a lifestyle may then be compromised. Failures in cooperation may be seen by the therapist as symptomatic of problems in commitment to a common goal. If that is the case, the focus of therapy first needs to be on commitment to a joint vision before exercises are done to enhance the ability to cooperate. Goal Setting It is important to realize that good teams have goals, short term and long term. Goals for successful teams have to be explicit, or success will be elusive. Goals may be problematic not only if they are hidden, but also if they are abstract. Marital therapists Hudson and O'Hanlon (1991) stated, We have found that the more abstract we have to be with the couple to find mutually agreeable goals, the more likely it is that it will be a treatment challenge. If the only commonality

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you can identify at first is not wanting nuclear war, you know that you are probably going to see the couple more than two or three sessions, (p. 45)

Goal setting becomes the first order of business in therapy once the concept of being a team is established. Like a good coach who writes the words national championship on the blackboard in the locker room, the therapist will help the couple to define the goals and vision they have for themselves. Unlike sports, however, there is more to being part of a successful couple than just winning the game. Goals may be complicated and change over time. Helping clients focus on who they are being as a couple entity cooperating to achieve their goals is an important part of the therapeutic relationship. Practice For a championship team to reach its goals, the team members need to be motivated to practice together. This is true in relationships as well. Teamwork requires awareness and rehearsal. Many therapists ask couples to do homework to practice the skills of cooperation they learn in sessions. These skills of cooperation include listening skills or sharing insights and feelings with each other. Like a championship team, a healthy couple needs to learn new things from time to time and adapt to new physical and emotional conditions. Practice is essential to this process. Many couples do not think they need this sort of practice, or they believe it to be a sign that they are weak or in need of remediation. In fact, this sort of rehearsal is essential to good learning. In sports, it has often been said that players always want to win a championship, but no one wants to go to practice. A good work ethic with support from the therapist is extremely helpful in creating an ongoing relationship that is flexible and alive. Teaching people to be persistent in the face of adversity helps them to reaffirm their commitment and gives them a tool that may be necessary to survive difficult times together. Incorporating practice into regular rituals is one way to ensure that practice occurs. In this sense, practice has at least two meanings. The first refers to repeating activities to gain mastery (such as practicing a

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jump shot in basketball). The second refers to the ritualized or regular performance of an activity, such as a meditation practice. Practice requires dedication, repetition, and persistence whether it is for mastery, meditation, or marital harmony. The therapist should make assignments for the couple to practice, and identify with them those behaviors that benefit the couple most. Designing a proclamation and stating a vision are examples of this kind of practice. Cooperation is needed to work on a couple vision. Practicing the couple proclamation is a basic homework assignment of CPT. Have the couple repeat their proclamation to each other daily—before they leave the house in the morning, at the beginning of important discussions, when they come home in the evening, at bedtime, or all of the above. If the proclamation is powerful, it may lead to a ritual practice that enhances the couple's daily life and establishes behaviors that are of ongoing therapeutic worth. Coaching Coaching is the third component of a good team and constitutes an essential part of teaching cooperation. Coaching is the act of teaching and supporting a person or team with a particular outcome or goal in mind. Therapy is more than just coaching, of course, but many of the principles of a coach-player relationship are useful to understand when working with a couple. Coaching might take place between the therapist and the couple, between the partners, or between the couple and others in the community, including friends, family, or support groups. (These options are discussed in detail in chap. 6 of this volume.) Coaches are effective when they are 100% committed to the team's goals. The couple being coached must be willing to follow the suggestions without argument or complaint. Tom Landry, legendary Dallas Cowboys football coach, said that "Leadership is getting someone to do what they don't want to do, so that they can achieve what they want to achieve." A coach who just tells players what they already know how to do is of little use. As a therapist and coach, you teach a couple to function as a team and encourage them to practice the skills they are developing. More than just a cheerleader, the coach is a teacher and a

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confidant, using personal observations and what is said by the couple to achieve positive results. Coaching skills involve listening and observing on the part of the therapist and then by the couple. Couples, especially those interested in sports and fitness, are usually quite open to the notion of operating in their couple like a team. The therapist acts as the model for committed listening—that is, listening to the couple with the intention of making sure that they will achieve their goals together. The therapist encourages each partner to practice coaching the other on small or large individual endeavors in which they participate together as a team. It is useful for the therapist to give an example by helping them select a project they might coach. For instance, the wife might coach the husband on a business project, or the husband might coach his wife on her tennis game. The therapist might lead them through the coaching steps of setting a goal and measurable milestones to achieve, and setting up a schedule for coaching time. The most difficult part of this phase of therapy then becomes teaching each person in the couple to request coaching and then to be coachable. As mentioned earlier, for many individuals, accepting coaching means asking for help and showing weakness. It is important to point out that coaching is not necessarily remedial. In fact, most professionals, athletes, singers, and even physicians are constantly engaged in coaching or supervision— not just to be good, but to be continuously better. The goal of coaching here is to increase the skill of both partners to be the best they can be as individuals and as a couple team. Clarifying Roles Clarifying the roles of each partner on the couple team is another vital component of teamwork. Coaches must make certain that the goals to be achieved are clear to all members of the team. On a good team, for instance, each player is not expected to do everything well. In baseball, good pitchers do not have to be good hitters, and good hitters may not be the best fielders. In basketball, each player won't score the same number of points as everyone else. Players have roles based on their particular

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skills, each making his or her own contribution (e.g., power forward or shooting guard). The same is true in a committed relationship. Not everyone can be as smart, skilled, talented, organized, articulate, or outgoing as everyone else. If the goal is for the players to win as a team, however, the players will perform their roles more willingly. If what they are expected to contribute is clear and acknowledged, they will act out their roles more efficiently. In couples therapy, clarifying expectations and roles within the relationship is essential to positive outcomes. Surprisingly enough, many partners have never discussed each other's strengths and weaknesses frankly and openly. The only context they may have for understanding their roles is "the enculturated lens of gender polarization" (Bern, 1993, p. 143). These traditional gender roles do play a useful part in establishing the parameters or script for how men and women should interact. They may help to give couples a sense of what to expect in a relationship and a framework within which to operate, but these expectations, too, often become an obstacle to couples. They may become exaggerated into rigid notions of masculinity and femininity that manifest in dominant and submissive roles that show up in a variety of unproductive ways, particularly regarding housework, child care, elder care, and decision making (Hochschild, 2003). These roles tend to become exaggerated after marriage, again after the birth of children, and with income differentials between spouses. Extreme notions of feminine passivity and masculine aggression may lead to gender role tensions over time, and may even result in domestic violence (Sanchez-Hucles & Dutton, 1999). According to McGoldrick (1999), idealized and unrealistic notions about the roles in a traditional marriage are causing women in particular to

view traditional marriage as a bad bargain... producing such profound discontinuities in the lives of women as to constitute a genuine health hazard. ... The ideal itself costs us all a tremendous amount in terms of our ability to be ourselves and find harmony in our relationships with each other and support the tasks of family life. (pp. 232-233)

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So a couple must do more than devise ways to satisfy the responsibilities of their preconceived gender roles. It is equally important for them to look for ways to coordinate (or even rethink) these roles to achieve true cooperation. Rigid gender roles result in stereotypical behavior and create inflexibility that inhibits a couple's ability to operate as an effective team able to adapt to a changing world. Without flexibility and cooperation, couple is weakened. Therapists must be on the alert for how couples may automatically drift into acting out traditional ideals and rigid gender roles without questioning them. Jim and Susan's 13-year marriage began quite traditionally, with Jim earning a salary while Susan kept house and raised the family. With their two young children in school, Susan started a small home business that soon blossomed into a profitable graphic design studio. When they discovered another baby was on the way, they experienced anxiety and conflict, which brought them into therapy. Once they were helped to see the gender trap they were falling into, they agreed that Jim would take a leave of absence from teaching. He would become a full-time father for a time so that Susan could develop her business, which was netting a considerable profit. Jim's willingness to set aside the notion that "father equals breadwinner" enabled the couple to succeed. Family life ran smoothly and each member of the couple found fulfillment. Susan's income generated enough money so that they were both able to cut back on their work. The expectations of a particular role often become a reality for couples, limiting their options and their ability to cooperate as a team. For example, if Susan had accepted the "reality" or stereotype that women are the primary caregivers at the expense of pursuing other interests, she would have been extremely frustrated. She probably never would have been able to help achieve financial stability for their couple. In abandoning the notion that it is unmanly to change diapers, Jim found he was able to enjoy their children more and relate to Susan more fully. He was not just a friend and romantic partner, but a fellow parent within their couple. Both Jim and Susan acknowledged each other frequently for the unique contribution each of them made to the successful operation of their new family.

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Identifying Respective Strengths and Contributions Identifying strengths is a crucial component of a powerful team of any kind. Even though there are often complaints about what is not done, there isn't enough appreciation of what has been contributed. Teams with good coaches are rewarded for their successes and strengths, as well as criticized for their weaknesses and failures. Defining roles and expectations and identifying strengths and contributions are part of establishing a basis for cooperation in a couple. The therapist must coach the partners to be clear about their respective roles and to acknowledge each other for fulfilling them. Likewise, the couple as a team must be clear about their goals as a unit, as the entity couple. Is their primary focus happiness, intimacy and sex, family or financial well-being? The therapist can assign homework for this purpose, asking the couple to cooperate on projects and learn from each other's strengths. Carrie and Lonnie often argued over family decisions. Married for 8 years with three small children, they did not buy a new car because they could not agree on whether to get a minivan or an SUV. Lonnie said he had much more skill in making the decision because he had a degree in engineering. Carrie said that she spent most of the time with the kids and knew their needs for a vehicle better. He didn't like the van she picked because it was not well built, and she did not like the SUV he liked because it was impractical and uncomfortable. He felt that she was ignoring his expertise, and she felt he was not paying attention to her responsibilities as the child caretaker. Working with their therapist, Carrie and Lonnie were encouraged to take on a cooperative project of buying a car, using their individual expertise and experiences together. After creating the couple proclamation "We are a loving team," they were given homework to define their expectations for the new vehicle, to recognize each other's concerns, and then to plan for evaluating possible selections. She identified his strength from past experience to do the safety analysis, and that she had a need for convenience concerns to be met. Together they wrote down the characteristics they were looking for in the new car. Then

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they went together online to look for something that met both their expectations. Within a week, they had made a selection that pleased them both. The process of teaching them how to cooperate on the project made the couple more able to acknowledge each of their contributions. Soon they argued less about many things. Team Spirit The final component of a successful team is team spirit and enthusiasm. Learning cooperation is both enjoyable and exciting. Teams are usually formed within the context of playing a game for fun. Even though many couples come to treatment for very serious problems, learning to cooperate reminds them that contributing together to meet a particular goal is a lot of fun. It is possible for planning a vacation, drawing up plans for an addition to a house, buying a bedroom suite, or having a baby to become enjoyable, rather than just stressful, experiences. Resolving an old issue often clears the way for new activities to happen. For example, removing fears of abuse or violence may make room for a return to trust and playfulness. The therapist may foster this enthusiasm and team spirit by also being playful and engaging. Watching a couple return to an earlier feeling of love and togetherness is quite rewarding for the practitioner as well as the couple. In many cases, the sessions that are the most fun for the therapist are also experienced by clients to be the most engaging and useful. These experiences represent a departure from the despair or frustration they often felt in interactions with each other. Team spirit becomes an important part of goal setting and problem solving because it increases a couple's interest in therapy and their motivation to explore new possibilities with each other. A spirit of cooperation is especially needed in blended families where children may come from a variety of past relationships, and current relationships may include other parents or siblings. Conflicting alliances and "invisible psychological bonds are the Ghosts at the Table" (Bray, 1998, p. 4) that often make it difficult to create a new viable structure or maintain couple as an entity.

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For example, Anna and Jerry, a couple in their early 50s, married, with each of them bringing children from previous marriages. They were presented with many conflicts when they tried to negotiate "my children" and "your children." When they agreed to take on the project of parenting and family building as a team and saw all the children as "our children," the conflicts between them began to disappear. It took a while for everyone to make the adjustment, but eventually their new family began to operate as a team. Cooperation, even among divorced parents, has been shown to be the most effective parenting arrangement. Bray (1998) referred to this as cooperative coparenting, which is "a cooperative postdivorce relationship and a mutual commitment to working together . . . sharing the same ultimate goal: the well-being of their child or children" (p. 232). This is a good example of goal setting being a function of the couple's commitment to being a couple entity.

Delivering on Promises Many conjoint, behavioral, and brief therapies are predicated on goal setting and the accomplishment of agreed-upon aims. Couples often complain that their partner does not do what he or she said he or she would do. In therapy with couples, it is important to see that mutual goal setting represents not merely agreeing, but creating a promise or contract to continue to work on the goals together. Sager (1976) spoke of written documentation of such contracts made between members of the couple. It is not only the content of the goal but also the mutual agreement to respect and deliver on the contract that becomes an invaluable part of treatment. For many married couples, a breach of trust has broken the original marriage contract. This may have been an extramarital affair, the breaking of an agreement regarding careers, or a feeling that the implicit trust they had regarding loyalty has been broken. Creating a new contract and pledging to keep it may restore trust to a troubled relationship.

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Making Contracts: The Power of Witnessing Contracts are especially powerful if written or spoken in front of witnesses. It is a common technique for a therapist to ask that a contract be made during sessions, or that the clients speak their agreement to each other as a proclamation. Partners may hold hands and look at each other when speaking, or create a unique ritual to remind them of their pledge to keep their contract. Many options for rituals are available in couples therapy, where witnessing is particularly powerful (see also chap. 6, this volume). Such rituals might be verbal or nonverbal. A wink at each other, a kiss or a hug, or any agreed-upon sign will serve to remind them of their intention. Contracts are most effective when they are connected to the couple proclamation made by the partners. This connection emphasizes that the contract represents a vision for the future, not just a change from the past. It is more efficient and effective to see contracts as statements about possibilities for the future, rather than remediation of prior mistakes. Contracts need to be focused on creating something together, not fixing an individual. For instance, a contract for one member of the couple to stop drinking or smoking or lose weight is an attempt to fix one person. An agreement that they will cooperate on attaining a joint goal—even if it is focused on one partner's project—is an example of a couple contract. To be an effective part of the therapy, a contract for a couple project must meet at least six criteria. It must n

D n

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be something that both partners see the benefit in an4 commit to doing; be stated positively; have an observable or measurable result both will be able to see; be reasonable; be challenging; and be completed during the time of therapy (with the possibility of being renegotiated if necessary; Sheras & KochSheras, 1998, p. 94).

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Working on these projects as a couple fosters a cooperative way of being while doing something significant together. Once one or more contracts to satisfy goals have been established, the therapist measures the progress made in achieving the content of the agreement. The therapist will also assess how well the partners are doing at reestablishing their trust and feelings of mutual respect and accomplishment. Joint Project Our favorite example of a cooperative couple project comes from the life of Dan and Mary, who had been married for nearly 10 years. It was a second marriage for each, and they had worked very hard to be in a relationship and still maintain their autonomy. Each felt that they had been submerged in the personality of their previous spouse. Following their wedding, Mary began to gain weight. Now, 10 years later, she was more than 25 pounds heavier than she wanted to be. Over the years, they had discussed her desire to drop a few pounds, and he had offered to help. He had shared that he found her more attractive when she was thinner. Mary always felt that it was up to her to go on a diet and that, though Dan was verbally supportive, he still went out and bought chips and snack food that were just too tempting for her. She thought he was almost challenging her to stay on her diet in the face of this temptation. Through couples work, Dan and Mary finally came up with a proclamation about their weight and an idea to cooperate on a joint project to have her lose the weight. They would both take on her diet together. Dan (a big overweight himself) agreed that it was as important to him and their couple as it was to her. As part of the agreement, they went together to a local weight loss clinic and signed up for a diet program. Every week they set a goal for weight loss together, not just for her but for their couple as a team. They set a goal with each other and the weight loss clinic to lose at least 40 pounds as a couple. Each week when they went for a weigh-in, they asked the staff to tell them how much weight their couple had lost together—and not to give them individual weights. Over a period of months, they were

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able to diet successfully through cooperation and commitment to meet the goal set in the contract they made.

Requests and Agreements A major barrier to generating contracts and cooperating is one or both members of the couple not knowing how to ask for what they want in a clear and effective manner. What many couples describe as poor communication is actually the fact that one or both may be afraid to ask their partner for what they want. A common theme in couples therapy is that one person never expresses what he or she wants, and the other seems always to be asking for more. Many relationships may suffer from poor verbal communication because of the partners' difficulties in dealing with simple requests made of each other. Very often one person will either withhold the complete expression of a want or need from the partner, or speak these desires as complaints or demands. The problem here is not poor communication skills necessarily, but little experience or training in how to make requests of another person that will lead to cooperation. Some clients pride themselves on never asking for anything, never feeling the weakness of asking for help, or they expect others to just read their mind. What frequently occurs, then, is that no request is made, so no request is met. Therefore, no cooperation is achieved, and resentment often builds up, which leads to demands rather than requests being made. During the session described earlier in which Sharon came in saying that she felt like "giving up on the relationship," she and her husband, Ron, discovered that cooperation was what was missing between them. Although they had been saying their proclamation "We back each other up one hundred percent" fairly regularly, Sharon was not being clear with Ron about what she needed from him. The therapist helped them to see that what they were calling a commitment issue was not really the problem at all. Instead, they were just not cooperating very well. The therapist helped them to see that they were stuck in the area of the second C, cooperation. They were given homework to make

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requests of each other and to practice listening and cooperating. At the next session, they said they were working on things more as a couple and had spent some time planning a project to do around the house as well as a vacation together. Sharon reported they were now feeling happy and calm. As Sharon and Ron demonstrate, couples may be taught how to make requests and how to respond to them in a way that promotes cooperation. Requesting may be taught and easily learned in therapy sessions. First, the therapist must let the clients know the usefulness of making requests and promises. Second, when couples work together on a project, knowing what is expected of oneself and others is crucial. Likewise, being able to ask questions and gain information about the other person's part of the agreement is essential to the success of the endeavor. If neither partner is clear about what is happening or what the other person needs to accomplish a task, one of them must make a request. A request is made respectfully, with a sincere desire to further the agreed-upon goal. Because most couples carry a great deal of history and resistance regarding asking their partner for something, it is often useful to have them express their wishes or complaints in the form of a clear request. For instance, "Dear, I would like to make a request that you do the grocery shopping this week so I can finish painting the bedroom." Resistance or defensiveness may be caused by earlier experiences in the family of origin, fear of retaliation, or low self-esteem, to name a few reasons. Such experience may lead a person to avoid talking about certain subjects or mis-hear them. Clearly stating what is requested is a way to make sure that the message has been received by the partner and to begin to address any resistance. The response to a request is usually a statement regarding whether or not the other person will agree to it. Honoring a request is really making a promise to do what is asked. The partners are encouraged to see it as a gift rather than an obligation or compromise. In response to a request, the other person has some freedom in how to respond. A request might be followed by one of four statements: (a) an agreement or a promise ("I will be happy to do the grocery shopping this week"), (b) a modification ("I can't do it this week, but if you can do the

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painting next week, I will be able to shop"), (c) a counterproposal ("I hate to grocery shop, but I would be glad to do the painting myself if you shop"), or (d) a refusal or declination ("I decline your request"). If a request is declined or refused outright, the request could be rephrased. Agreements or promises must include a specific description of what is to be done and when it will be done. If it becomes clear that an agreement cannot be met, then the therapist needs to have the couple take responsibility for that and to renegotiate when the agreement will be accomplished. This is essential. Agreements cannot always be kept. A person who feels that he or she must keep all his or her promises is less likely to make any. What is important is that the agreement or promise be made in good faith and that the couple take it on as a team. As mentioned above, this process of making requests and agreements should be practiced in therapy sessions and also given as homework. We often ask couples to make a certain number of requests of each other every day. It is not important to start with the most significant request. We give them the helpful hint that sometimes practicing on little things gives a person the confidence and momentum for taking on bigger issues later. Being able to make requests and agreements and honoring them rebuilds trust in the couple and allows them to feel generous and good about their ability to cooperate. Practice during sessions or as homework will allow the partners to explore the obstacles they have to making requests. Including this exercise of daily requests helps to reveal underlying problems that may then be addressed. The exercise also involves making requests and agreements respectfully, lovingly, generously, and out of commitment to common goals for the relationship. We often use the analogy of making a request of a person who has packed your parachute. "Would you be willing to make a request and get over feeling insecure if your life depended upon it?" If you have a question about how your partner packed your parachute before you jump from a plane, are you more concerned that your partner might be offended that you have questioned his or her skill, or more worried that you would die if you did not ask?" It is safer to make the request, knowing that both

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partners have the same goal (safely using the parachute), than to worry that the other person might be insulted. Metaphors involving other species are also useful. Cooperation appears to come more naturally or instinctively to many animals. Geese, for instance, instinctively share the duties of breaking the wind on long flights at the head of a V-formation, thus allowing more tired birds from their family to rest at the rear where the air is less turbulent. Donkeys, when climbing steep grades, lean on each other to gain support and traction. Couples can sometimes understand these simple models for cooperating that they might otherwise have overlooked.

Facilitating Cooperation With Humor Relationships have the power to make people very happy or extremely sad. As therapists, we often encounter people at their saddest, most frustrated, angriest, and most hopeless time. What is characteristic of these states is that they tend to be selfabsorbing and encourage little outside perspective-taking. The goal of effective therapy is to get the clients to look outside of themselves at the system that surrounds them and see that moving to a larger box, as described earlier, would be more beneficial. When self-absorbed and self-indulgent, clients are least able to understand the consequences of their behavior in the outside world or to learn about cooperation, which requires a larger view. Working with couples in this state is often very discouraging to the practitioner, partly because we may focus too much on the clients' feelings and not enough on the bigger picture. The use of humor and playfulness allows the couple to see their situation more clearly and flexibly. This has been the experience of many of our colleagues and certainly our own (Hudson & O'Hanlon, 1991; Pittman, 1995). Cooperation often requires a change in perspective from just looking at the individual to looking at the larger context. Helping couples see the occasional humor in their own behavior, as well as laughing at oneself as a therapist, serves as a tool to change the perspective in a positive way. Think of all the television and radio sitcoms based on couple

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relationships—from The Honeymooners to Friends, from The Odd Couple to Will and Grace. Each portrays everyday problems of relationships in a lighthearted way that almost everyone can relate to. It is important that couples learn to laugh with each other, not at each other. The same is true for therapists. We often secretly see the humor in a situation. Sharing such humorous insights in a gentle and playful way is very helpful to our clients. Marty and Noreen had been dating for nearly 3 years and living together just over a year when they came to see a therapist. It was Marty's idea. He said that he was tired of doing everything that Noreen wanted all the time and still feeling like she thought he was inadequate. Every time she would ask for something, he would get it for her. If she wanted to do something, he would change his plans to accommodate her. She said she loved him but that he was inconsiderate and insensitive to her needs. After a number of sessions with the therapist, they were able to explore the issue of commitment to their couple. They agreed that they were committed to each other, but everything always seemed to be so serious. T: How did things go last week for your couple? N: I don't really see any improvement. Marty still doesn't really do all the things he should be doing. T: Marty, do you know what Noreen means when she says you aren't doing enough? M: I am not sure. What I have noticed is that everything at home seems so serious. It is like she is watching and waiting for me to screw up. T: Do you remember the proclamation that you generated together last week? Can you say it together? N & M: "We have fun together"? T: Yes, that's right, but can you say it again looking at each other and saying it as you would say a proclamation, not a question? N & M: "We have fun together!" T: Now if you were "being fun together," how would you be acting this coming week?

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M: I am not sure what you mean. T: Well, what would the fun couple you proclaim yourself to be, be like. What might you be doing? N: I guess we would be having fun. T: Could you have a project or an assignment this coming week to have fun? What might that be? M: Well, for starters we could make each other laugh more. We used to do that a lot. N: I think some weeks go by that we don't laugh at all. Maybe we could work on making each other laugh more. T: So, if you were true to your proclamation, maybe you could arrange to make each other laugh regularly. How about once a day? M: At least that sounds like more fun than we have been having. T: So that is your assignment. Say your proclamation once a day and make each other laugh once a day.

After a week, they came to the next session and told the stories of what had made them laugh. Following the description of a food fight they had at dinner the evening before, they said that they felt better about each other and more excited about their relationship in the future. During the session, they laughed uncontrollably, and so did the therapist.

Exercises and Assignments Accomplishing the task of cooperation is a skill to be acquired. As such, homework or exercises definitely can be useful. In the area of cooperation, there are three common types of exercises: the creation of cooperative projects, practicing requests and agreements, and creating a vision of the future together. Homework for projects involves asking the couple to create a joint project together, preferably outlined in writing. Then they set up the tasks that need to be accomplished, how they will divide up the work, and when they expect to complete each

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part of the project. The contract must also include what the measurable outcome will be and how to evaluate its success. The therapist needs to encourage the couple to meet weekly about their project, review their progress in sessions, coach them, and encourage them to coach each other. As mentioned earlier, practicing making requests and agreements also makes a good weekly assignment. Tell each of the partners to make a request (or a number of requests) of each other every week. Have them begin by saying, "I would like to make a request. My request is ..." The other is to respond by agreeing to grant the request by a certain time, modifying the request, or declining it. Have them start with small requests and work up to more significant ones. Creating a vision as a homework assignment involves asking the couple to design a cooperative future together in concrete terms. Such a task might be to have them plan their retirement or to create a family vacation. Ask them to be specific in visualizing, drawing, or writing down what that future will look like—for example, if they plan to buy a boat and go on a sailing trip, they can bring in some pictures of the boat they will buy and some maps showing proposed routes. When a vision is created, the impetus to cooperate to achieve it is much greater. Writing it down or being explicit makes the commitment to it stronger. Jenny and Bob came to therapy after living together for 3 years. They were clear that they were in love, reported great and frequent sex, and thought that they would get married some time soon. Over the past 2 months, Jenny had been feeling more and more left out of Bob's life. Her job had her traveling frequently, whereas he worked locally and was home every afternoon by 5:30. Often he had friends over and partied a lot while she was gone. Jenny was afraid to tell Bob that she wanted more of his time for fear that he would say that he was having too much fun and didn't need her. He often seemed to make demands of her to cook and clean for his friends. She was becoming more resentful, but didn't want to sound like a complaining, nagging girlfriend. Although they seemed committed to being together, she did not know what else to do except bring him with her to see a marital therapist.

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The treatment of Bob and Jenny involved them envisioning their future together and teaching her to make requests of him. She found out that they could easily design a future together, including a family and friends for both of them. She could stop traveling and work from the house, and he would help out more at home when the kids were little. When they could both feel good about this cooperative vision, she was able to make requests of him, because she was assured that he was not leaving. He saw that he could make requests of her as well. In this case, commitment was present, and cooperative skill building allowed them to continue a happier life together as a couple. By the end of treatment (about 6 months), they were engaged to be married.

Assessing Cooperation As with assessing commitment, assessing cooperation in a couple can usually be accomplished by asking some basic questions of a couple. Below are some of the common basic questions to ask and some follow-up queries as well. Basic Questions 1. How well do you cooperate with each other? 2. Can you do some things better together than you do individually? What are those things? 3. How do you respond together during a crisis? Give an example. Additional Questions 1. What activities are you involved in together? 2. Are you competitive with each other? Who usually wins? 3. Are you engaged in team sports together? 4. Who is in charge in your relationship? What is this person in charge of? 5. How often do you argue? About what sorts of things?

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6. To solve a problem, does one of you usually have to give something up? 7. Do you believe that there is always a way to work things out if you try together?

Conclusion The importance of cooperation cannot be overstated. Many people think that they are cooperating merely because they seem to be getting along or because there are few major arguments or altercations between them, but they may miss seeing what is possible from the art of cooperation and being a team. What makes a team truly great is that they go beyond the goal of cooperating to avoid losing; they go all the way to being champions together. This component of a couple produces a sense of being more than just reasonably happy; rather, a couple becomes something really exceptional. For a therapist, true cooperation in a couple he or she treats is a beauty to behold, gratifying and joyful.

Chapter

5 Communication f you ask couples why they have come for therapy, most say, "Our major problem is communication." One or both of them generally feels misunderstood, insulted, not heard, or ignored. Both couples and therapists alike, in fact, often think that learning to communicate better is the primary task of therapy. The therapist must be cautious, however, not to just listen to couples complain about their problems and then go directly into teaching communication skills. Without the proper context, the couple may do more harm than good with their speaking. In the name of communicating, they may attack, blame, berate, and hurt each other, serving only to reinforce the battle lines between them. Rather than getting trapped in the cross fire, the therapist must provide protection from the fallout by stopping this kind of destructive communication until the structure for a more positive way of relating is created. It is axiomatic in virtually all treatment approaches that effective communication plays an important role. Good communication, however, is not enough to maintain a well-functioning couple; it is of little use in bringing about effective change unless the members of a couple are committed to being together and cooperating to reach a mutual goal. "Therapists might be more effective if they could help couples to identify and cultivate underlying character strengths necessary for good communication" (Powers, 2001, p. 327). Those underlying strengths include

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commitment and cooperation, the first two Cs of CPT. The strengths or skills necessary to accomplish the third C, communication, are described in this chapter.

Background Work: The Context of Partnership To communicate effectively, a true couple partnership must be strong and competent; it must be based on shared visions, commitments, and agreements. In the kind of relating typical of a cocreating couple, disagreements are an expected and necessary part of continued growth and fulfillment. The crucial variable is not so much whether the person is male or female. In general, men and women often have different perspectives and styles of communicating (Gray, 1992; Tannen, 1990), but problems in communication exist in same-sex couples as well. It seems actually less a matter of gender, then, and more a matter of context— the context of a true partnership. This context is created out of language, as aptly described by Montuori and Conti (1993): Partnership is created in dialogue, and dialogue is created in partnership. This does not mean that in a partnership dialogue we just nod and smile a friendly smile and agree with each other at all costs. A partnership dialogue involves both parties listening, questioning, probing, exploring, but also trying to build something together, (p. 266)

Couples may be taught to engage in partnership dialogue, but the process must first be carefully developed and monitored for it to work properly. As mentioned above, some couples may need individual or extra help with communication skills to accomplish the first two Cs if they have significant communication deficits. In most cases, however, once the basic tasks of the first two Cs have been established, the practitioner needs to monitor and teach the couple some specific communication practices, techniques, and behaviors for maintaining commitment and cooperation. A therapist may already be familiar with some of these methods or have some personal favorites; others presented here will be new. The core of the couple power model involves

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two basic components that we call dedicated listening and dedicated speaking. These aspects of the model and methods for achieving this kind of communication with couples in therapy are described below.

Dedicated Listening Couples therapists are trained to be good listeners to be effective with clients. It is also important that practitioners teach listening skills to the couples they treat. The ability to listen is essential for powerful communication. However, though it might seem a simple thing to do, most couples do not know how to listen to each other effectively. Most clients do not pay attention to the fact that communication is a two-way process, requiring both speaking and listening. They are so concerned with saying the right thing that they forget to pay attention to hearing the right thing. People usually remember only a small percentage of what is being said. Perhaps this is because listening tends to be seen as a passive behavior in which one is given an answer or just waits for a turn to speak. For the cocreating couple, the key to communicating effectively is what we call dedicated listening. It means being fully present and attentive to the speaker's experience. This is similar to what has also been referred to as active listening, nondefensive listening, reflective listening, or listening "with the heart" (Welwood, 1990). The listener's job is to be committed or dedicated to knowing one's partner completely and to understanding fully his or her experiences. The partners will learn to do this as they go deeper into committing to each other and their couple as an entity. This particular aspect of communication is crucial for conflict resolution, as "simply listening to each other is the most important step ... [especially] in relationships between the sexes" (Montuori & Conti, p. 265). Listening Exercises To teach and test the couple's commitment to dedicated listening, the therapist may guide the couple through a variety of exercises

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specifically focused on enhancing the partners' ability to hear and understand each other better. These exercises should be done both in the office and as homework. The simplest and most basic exercise to start with is to have the listener feed back or echo what he or she heard their partner say; the speaker then listens to make sure that he or she feels completely understood. It is important to point out that the intention is not only for the listener to understand the message but for the speaker to have a sense of being heard. Both members of the couple should be encouraged to keep going until they agree that the communication is complete; otherwise they may engage in mind reading— assuming (sometimes erroneously) they understand what each other thinks and feels. When that situation occurs, the therapist can have the couple use a feedback exercise (e.g., "What I heard you say was .. .") or do a "mind check" (i.e., ask permission to check out and verify one's assumptions). Mind checking (Bach & Bernhard, 1971; Gordon, 1993) gives partners a way to let each other know they care about the other's feelings, while checking out the inferences they are making about them. A dramatic example of the consequences of not being heard is evident in the young couple, Uri and Margot, described above. When Uri left Margot in the bedroom crying, he assumed that she wanted to be left alone. Margot said that she assumed that he was being cold and callous. After they had recounted the incident, the therapist noticed that Uri did not look at her when speaking. The therapist asked Uri to take Margot's hands in his and look at her while doing a mind check. T: Margot, what are you feeling right now? M: Uri, I feel that it doesn't matter to you that I am upset. I think that you don't really care about me, that you are cold and callous and that's why you leave me alone when I am upset. T: Uri, can you repeat back to Margot what you heard her say? U: Margot, what I heard you say was that you thought I didn't come to support you while you were crying because I was being cold and callous. And that I don't care about you when I don't come to support you. Is that right?

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M: Yes. (Her expression softened as she looked at him.) T: Uri, I want you to tell Margot what you were thinking while she was crying in the bedroom. U: I knew that she was upset and I didn't want to bother her. I thought she would need some time to sort out what she was feeling and then she would ask for my help or support. T: So you thought that you knew what Margot was thinking and you acted accordingly? U: I guess that's exactly what I did. M: Uri, how could you possibly think that? T: Margot, hold on just a second while we try to get to the bottom of this. Uri was acting based on what he thought you were thinking. He was reading your mind in a way. So Uri thought he was 100% correct in understanding why you were crying. Margot, you have heard what Uri thought. What percentage of that was accurate—from 1 to 100%? M: About 25%. T: Tell Uri the 25% that was accurate and the 75% that was not. M: What was true was that I did want to pull myself together and work through my feelings. What was not true was that I wanted to be left alone. In times like that I want physical support. I want you to be there. T: Uri, echo back to her what you just heard. U: What I heard you say was that I was right about your wanting to sort out your feelings but I was wrong that you wanted to be alone. You want me to be with you when you are upset. T: Margot, was that pretty accurate? M: Yes, it was.

This was an eye-opener for him as he repeated back her feeling that she felt he didn't care. The therapist noticed the change in their nonverbal behavior as well. When he requested that Uri take Mar got's hands in his, she seemed quite stiff, almost as

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EXHIBIT 5.1

//1 Were Alone Complete the exercise individually and then listen to each other's responses. Think: If you weren't in a couple right now—no shared responsibilities or child-care duties—how would you like to spend your time? Do: On a blank sheet of paper, list 10 things you would do this week if you were not in a relationship. Have your partner make a separate list of 10 things he or she would do. Discuss: Compare your lists. Do you have any things in common? What things are different? Talk about the differences between your lists. Are there things that you thought of that you would do alone that you might do with a partner? Why or why not? Do you see things on your partner's list that you would be willing to participate in with him or her?

though she would pull away. After she heard him echo what she said, she began to lean toward him and listen carefully. Just the process of hearing him acknowledge her feelings allowed Margot to feel understood and supported. Uri described his experience about how private the people in his family and country of origin were with their feelings, and she was able to understand him a bit better. This helped Margot to forgive him for that incident as well as several similar occurrences. The therapist also pointed out the change in their nonverbal behavior of softening and leaning toward each other. They smiled when he mentioned it. The therapist may have couples work to overcome obstacles to effective listening and to develop their verbal skills by doing some written exercises as homework and then sharing their experiences with each other. We have designed two exercises for couples: "If I Were Alone" and "Changing Places" (see Exhibits 5.1 and 5.2). These exercises focus on identifying obstacles to sustaining couple (see chap. 7, this volume) and on opening up new possibilities for communication and cooperation. Once the couple has completed the exercise individually and listened to each other's responses, encourage them to share their thoughts

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EXHIBIT 5.2 Changing Places Complete the exercise individually and then listen to each other's responses. Think: What things do you do each day in relation to your couple and family that are identified with your gender? Consider this question with regard to such areas as housework, errands, child care, social life, and decision making. Do: Write down some of the gender-related tasks you perform in one or more of the areas described above. Pick a day this week or next week to change places with your partner to perform these tasks. Note: You can vary this part of the exercise by taking turns doing the other person's tasks with him or her for a while.

Discuss: Talk about what you have learned. Did you feel at a disadvantage because of your gender? Would it be possible to share certain tasks or to divide responsibilities differently should the need or want arise?

honestly in the next session. Each one is asked to listen uncritically and with an open mind. Make sure they are not trying to give the right answer, or responses designed just to please their partner. Even if they don't agree with what the other person says, they should focus on accepting their partner's responses as a contribution and an opportunity to cocreate new possibilities together. Manuel and Annette, married for 5 years, had no children and each had very successful individual careers. Both traveled frequently for their work; the time away was disturbing at first but now seemed commonplace. They each reported growing apart from the other. Their therapist asked them to remember what it was like when they were first married, but neither was able to recollect what they felt that seemed so wonderful back then. She then asked them to do the "If I Were Alone" exercise. Each was to keep track every day of things they did that involved their partner and think, "What would I be doing now if I were by myself and not married to my spouse?" After the first week, Manuel reported that he was surprised at how many things he did, even by himself, that involved Annette. Sometimes he would

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wonder what she would like for dinner when he was grocery shopping. After another week of doing the exercise, Annette reported thinking about Manuel when she was out of town, and wishing that he were there with her. The importance of being couple became clearer to them. They saw that they had both been afraid of being rejected and had been anticipating it—even though they didn't really want to separate. This experience began a process of spending more time together and developing trust in the relationship without the fear of abandonment. Even though they were a committed couple when they began therapy, sharing and listening to each other's insights helped remove some doubts and insecurities that had threatened to destroy their relationship.

Dedicated Observing: Listening for Nonverbal Communication A crucial aspect of dedicated listening that goes on constantly is nonverbal communication. Too often it is ignored by clients and therapists alike. Therapists are generally trained to do talking therapy. Some approaches do include how to pay attention to and make use of nonverbal cues. These include neurolinguistic programming (Bandler & Grinder, 1979), brief dynamic psychotherapy (Davanloo, 1992,1999), and somatic-emotional methods (Keleman, 1979; Weir, 1975), all of which have proven to be extremely effective in forwarding the therapeutic process. Much of human experience is internal and unconscious, and a great deal of that experience is expressed nonverbally through body language. Bandler and Grinder (1979) pointed out, "When you make a statement or ask a human being a question they will always give you the answer non-verbally, whether or not they are able to consciously express what it is" (p. 18). For many people, in fact, processing the world nonverbally is their primary representational system (Cameron-Bandler, 1985). Nonverbal cues include gestures, body position, facial color and expressions, movement, eye contact, touch, crying, or laughing. Often voice tone and volume communicate as much or more than do words themselves. A picture is, indeed, worth a thousand words.

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Paying attention to physical expressions during therapy is highly instructive and gives clues about the relationship to both the therapist and the couple. Carl and Jane, discussed earlier, clearly demonstrated this during a session by uncharacteristically sitting on opposite sides of the couch. The therapist noticed this and inquired about it. Jane leaned back and said that she felt like her usual seat was the active seat and that she was tired of doing most of the talking. She said she was going to sit back and let Carl be in the "hot seat" and do more of the work that day—which he finally did. This observation of nonverbal behavior thus helped to promote their verbal communication in ways that might have otherwise been missed or ignored. Switching usual seats is also very instructive in a group setting. A couples therapy group spontaneously chose one day to have all the women sit on one side of the room and all the men on the other. This led to some powerful bonding among the sexes and sparked an interesting discussion about gender issues. It is important that both couples and therapists become adept at the aspect of communication that we call dedicated observing of specific nonverbal behaviors. Hudson and O'Hanlon (1991) called this element of marital therapy videotalk, that is, channeling what the clients say into actions that could be both seen and heard if you "were watching a videotape of whatever they are talking about" (p. 23). The authors give a striking example of such videotalk in describing a couple that had a problem with the husband's violent acting out behavior. They were instructed to look for "early warning signs of impending violence" (p. 79), and the wife reported that when the husband got angry, he would fold his arms and purse his lips. They then agreed that they would use this new perceptual cue to initiate a cooldown period, which reportedly stopped their cycle of violence. Making an actual videotape of a session and having the therapist or couple view it during or after therapy is also extremely useful for picking up things that may be overlooked. Pointing out to Uri and Margot their nonverbal messages made a big difference in what Uri was trying to communicate. Leaving her alone in the bedroom gave an unintended nonverbal message of unconcern and coldness. When he was explaining how concerned he was about Margot when she was crying in the

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bedroom, he at first looked only at the therapist. When the therapist pointed this out and suggested he direct his remarks to Margot, Uri took her hand and looked into her eyes while speaking and listening to her. Only then did she begin to cry and respond warmly to him. It is important at intimate moments like this in the therapy for both the couple and the therapist to respect the power of nonverbal communication and remain quiet while experiencing the intensity in the room. Nonverbal Exercises Several exercises involving nonverbal experience are widely available for use as homework or during a couples therapy session (Bach & Bernhard, 1971; Gordon, 1993). The intention of many of these nonverbal experiences is to foster trust. One of these includes taking turns doing a blind walk, in which one partner closes his or her eyes and is led silently on a walk by the other. The purpose of this exercise is to experience being led and leading in the context of a "trust test"—a way of checking out feelings of relying on one another. ... After the "Blind Walk" partners share their observations and feelings. Were you a responsible, trustworthy guide? Did you feel comfortable being led? The relationship between power (dependency) and trust may be discussed. (Bach & Bernhard, 1971, p. 90)

It is often surprising to notice the strong feelings, both positive and negative, that arise out of doing such exercises. Such was the experience of Gail and Norman, a couple in their 30s who had been married for 5 years and were in conflict around the issue of whether or not to have children. Although they had been ambivalent on the issue when they married, Norman now felt strongly about wanting to start a family. Gail had just received an important promotion at work and felt that Norman was pressuring her and disregarding their previous agreements. Talking about it didn't seem to be getting them anywhere, so

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the therapist suggested that they do the blind walk exercise as homework. The following week they reported joyfully that Norman had blindfolded Gail and guided her through a beautiful trail in the mountains. When he took off the blindfold, Gail felt that she could trust him to "create beauty" in their life together. Next, Gail had taken him back to their house and walked him lovingly around their favorite places. She wanted him to know that she valued their home life as much as her job; he then felt that she could now hear his needs. This exercise opened up a conversation about the possibility of having children from a new, more positive perspective than they had ever had before. Another aspect of a couple's life for which nonverbal exercises are particularly useful is the area of sex. Sexuality is often a difficult subject for both a therapist and a couple to address. This is not surprising, given the many barriers to sexuality present in our culture. We hardly even have a language to speak about it that is not medical, euphemistic, or crude. Fortunately, however, when the therapist is comfortable dealing with sex, the couple is usually relieved to have someone help them confront it. So, it is important that the therapist develop an openness and ease in dealing with sexual issues and inquire about them during assessment. Giving the clients physical exercises to do for homework often makes it easier to address sexual issues and allows the couple to identify problem areas and discuss them. Exercises, such as massage and sensate focus, are a standard part of sex therapy treatment (Kaplan, 1974; Masters & Johnson, 1966). While doing these exercises oriented around progressive nondemand touching, couples are able to learn to experience and appreciate each other's bodies and share their physical reactions more openly. These kinds of sex therapy exercises are particularly useful with a couple like Beth and Sam, discussed previously. Beth found it very difficult to talk about sex, let alone have it. She was always worried about "saying something stupid" or not measuring up to his expectations. During the traditional sex therapy exercises of showering together and sensate focus, the nonverbal response technique for indicating pleasure or displeasure allowed her to get past her inhibitions enough to participate fully and begin to enjoy herself sensually and sexually.

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EXHIBIT 5.3 The Body Journey Guided Fantasy Read this fantasy to your partner. Then have your partner read this fantasy to you. When you have both finished, share the reactions, memories, and messages that you got from the various parts of your bodies. Prepare to take a journey. Just close your eyes slowly and relax. I will be your guide. This journey is very close to home—through your own body. Begin now by paying attention to the sensation of your body resting in the chair. .. . Notice any parts of your body that you feel yourself tensing or numbing. Pay attention to those parts of your body. . . . And now, let me guide you as you go through each part. .. . Pay attention first to your head. (The guide mentions all the parts of the head next, and then goes through every other part of the body, including the genitals, down to the toes.) Now that you have traveled through your whole body, notice any part of your body that may still feel tense or numb. .. . Go to that part of your body now, and have it give you a message. . . . Take whatever you get. . . . And now take a deep breath. As you inhale, feel yourself breathing energy into those parts of your body that feel numb or deadened. .. . Take another deep breath. As you exhale, feel yourself releasing tension from those parts of you that feel tense. . . . As you complete your journey, thank the parts of you that have communicated with you, and let them know that you will make use of their messages, even if they don't make sense to you now, to help yourself and your partner now and in the future. .. . Notice the sensation of your body resting against the chair. ... Imagine the room you are in. . .. Take a few deep breaths, and on the count of three open your eyes.

Guided fantasy, similar to guided imagery discussed above, is another powerful nonverbal technique that may be used to facilitate sexual awareness as well as gain insight into other areas of the couple's life. The experience involves having someone relate a story or event, either live or on tape, while another person actively visualizes and embellishes the images silently. The therapist may guide the couple through a fantasy in session, or put it on tape for them to do as homework; one partner could also read it to the other at home and then switch roles. One such fantasy exercise called "The Body Journey" (see Exhibit 5.3) helps couples get more in touch with their bodies and their sexuality, and provides material for discussing their feelings in a concrete way. After going through this fantasy, the couple shares the reactions, memories, and messages that they got from the various

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parts of their bodies. They are instructed to listen attentively, never expressing disapproval or criticism of any of their partner's reactions. Just sharing the fantasy itself often enables the partners to overcome inhibitions and increase their sensitivity to their own and each other's physical reactions. Sometimes memories and submerged feelings emerge about physical or sexual abuse that they have not recalled or shared with each other before. This often leads to increased insight and intimacy in the relationship. A couple in their 60s, Brenda and John, both married for the second time, came to therapy for help with their sexual relationship, which had deteriorated since John's prostrate surgery. Brenda was particularly put off by the leakage of urine John had during coitus. She was now reluctant to have sexual relations, which was a great source of distress to both of them, especially because sex had been a very important part of their relationship. They were guided through "The Body Journey" fantasy and Brenda recalled a sexually abusive situation from her childhood involving urination that helped them both understand and overcome their problem. There are many other nonverbal guided fantasies or creative visualizations that the therapist can suggest for couples to enhance their sensitivity, awareness, and intimacy (Gawain, 1979; Koch-Sheras, Hollier, & Jones, 1983; Koch-Sheras & Sheras, 1998). Guided fantasies are effective when used as homework, during a session, or in a couples therapy group. If the therapist is comfortable with the technique, fantasies can be particularly useful as part of a group experience. In a group, a couple can gain insights from other members' comments and experiences that may help them understand more fully what their own reactions mean for them and their partner.

Dedicated Speaking For communication to be effective, the therapist should teach the couple to balance nonverbal awareness and dedicated listening with verbal expression and dedicated speaking. It is not enough just to verbalize one's wants or desires, however. To be heard, each partner must operate from the intention to talk to

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each other, not at each other, in a way that both of them can be understood completely. This requires the couple to commit or dedicate themselves to the task of cocreating the conditions for productive speaking in the relationship. Following is a description of these conditions and how to facilitate them in couples work. Taking Responsibility Perhaps the most difficult thing for couples to learn in achieving effective communication is to take full responsibility for the current status of their relationship. Rather than looking at their couple communication as something that just happens, each partner must operate proactively from a joint vision of how he or she wants it to be. As they did with dedicated listening, the couple needs to practice dedicated speaking, which means being fully aware and responsible for what each of them says as well as how it is perceived. The therapist must teach the partners what is likely for them to be two new ways of thinking about responsibility. The first is a recognition that what is communicated arises from the individual's own unique world view and not from the way things just are. The second is based on a perception of the self as an active agent rather than as reacting to the control of others. Most couples enter therapy maintaining a passive attitude toward their relationship, depending on their partner or the therapist to fix it. Instead, the couple needs to be encouraged to take responsibility for creating a new vision and possibility for their couple. This is done, initially, through the use of language. Having the partners declare their commitment out loud in a powerful and positively stated proclamation (see chap. 3, this volume) teaches them to take responsibility for the condition of their relationship early on in the treatment. By supporting the couple in this task, the therapist instructs them to see that they are not the victims of circumstance but the directors of the fate of their relationship, continually creating new possibilities through their speaking. Teaching this kind of responsible behavior is easier said than done. Our culture and our language are not set up to support

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people in taking responsibility for the success of their relationship. Having been taken care of since birth, people often continue that expectation into adulthood, arriving for therapy with a desire to have their partner or the therapist take the role of a parent. That arrangement may work well for some people up to a point, such as with the role-defined type of couple (see chap. 2, this volume). Eventually, however, one or both partners may get tired of that arrangement, which leads to conflict. They develop stories from their own point of view to explain the conflict, based on their own interpretations rather than a joint commitment to the couple. The goal of treatment is to have the couple "take their stories less seriously or generate ones that support their relationships and help them resolve their conflicts" (Hudson & O'Hanlon, 1991, p. 20). Even more challenging than the partners taking joint responsibility for the condition of their couple is having them take individual responsibility for their own part in the state of the relationship. In working on the second C, the task of cooperation, the couple learns that being couple is not a 50/50 proposition; it requires operating from a place of 100%/100%. In accomplishing the third C, the task of communication, each partner takes on full responsibility in speaking and behavior for the current state of the couple. A direct but challenging way to accomplish this responsibility is to have the partners make I statements rather than you statements to each other. The use of I statements is one of the most commonly used methods for enhancing communication (Gladding, 2002; Hahlweg, Baucom, & Markman, 1988; Satir, 1972). It requires constant vigilance on the part of the therapist and couple to monitor the wording of each sentence spoken to or about one's partner. This process enables the individual to take responsibility for his or her own perceptions, rather than projecting them onto the partner. This kind of language and perspective helps to avoid blame and guilt, as no one person is at fault. It also creates an opportunity for the partners to be generous to each other. They gradually gain greater insight into their own motives through the responsible use of language. This way of speaking, referred to by Weir (1975) as percept language, states, "I discover my uniqueness by taking ownership of myself and

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my experience and by assuming responsibility for my behavior" (p. 309). An advantage of this aspect of the couple power model is that the therapist is not put in the role of being a mediator or judge, but serves as a guide or coach to hold each person accountable for acknowledging his or her part in the relationship. This approach allows for much more flexibility, ease, and power for the therapist and eventually for the couple. The Hidden Payoff When there is reluctance on the part of either partner to take responsibility for some problem related to the couple, the therapist needs to help the client realize the hidden payoff of holding on to that problem. This payoff is similar to what Freud referred to as secondary gain—something powerful on an unconsciousness level that keeps another behavior from occurring. "There is always a payoff in everything we do; otherwise we wouldn't do it" (Gawain, 1979, p. 117). In a couple, usually that payoff has something to do with justifying one's own position and blaming one's partner for the difficulties in the relationship. It may sound difficult to accomplish, but couples will achieve significant progress by discovering the underlying payoff of their behavior and acknowledging their own responsibility for the relationship being the way it is. This process works particularly well when one partner feels wronged in some way by the other, such as in the case of an affair. Carl and Jane, the couple described above who were dealing with Carl's affairs, are a striking example of how this kind of dedicated speaking works. The therapy was at an impasse, even after Carl's extra individual sessions, with Jane still waiting for Carl to "express his remorse sufficiently." The therapist asked Jane, "What is the payoff for keeping yourself and the relationship in such a stuck, unhappy place?" Finally, Jane could identify and admit the payoff of punishing Carl for what he had done by holding on to her anger for years: "I have blamed Carl for my life," she said. "Now I can give up making him wrong and tell myself that it's okay to be happy." This soon led to her acknowledging how her own demanding behavior toward Carl had likely contributed to his infidelity.

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Soon after that, she accepted Carl's apology and was able to express her forgiveness to him. Expressing Forgiveness The expression of forgiveness, as seen above relating to the issue of infidelity in the case of Carl and Jane, is often crucial to the resolution of conflict between the members of a couple. In fact, "Clinical experiences . . . indicate that forgiveness has significant value in diminishing the betrayal and pain and enabling couples to work at resolving emotional conflicts that predispose their marriage to infidelity" (Enright & Fitzgibbons, 2000, p. 212). The therapist needs to help the clients realize that forgiveness involves forgiving oneself and one's partner as well as asking for forgiveness for one's own actions. The precondition for forgiveness (which literally means giving as before) is usually a genuine apology of some sort. Although it may seem relatively simple to do, as in Carl and Jane's case, unfortunately it is often very difficult for couples to apologize and forgive each other to both partners' satisfaction, especially in Western culture. "American society allows people to manifest a substantial amount of anger. Not forgiving is socially acceptable" (Enright, 2001, p. 13). One or both partners may be holding on to their hidden payoff and be reluctant to let the other person off the hook. They may also believe in the romantic notion that "Love is never having to say you're sorry" (Segal, 1970). The therapist must help the couple get past that illusion by reminding them of the importance of taking responsibility for the state of their relationship through their dedicated speaking. In The Art of Forgiving, Lewis Smedes (1996) pointed out the important connection between responsibility and forgiveness: When we forgive, we get new courage to recall what happened even though it wounded us badly and even though it was done by the ones in our lives we most trusted to do us good. We also dare to recall our own responsibility for what happened to us ... and what we did to add to our pain. (p. 173)

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Another way to facilitate the couple's taking responsibility for attaining forgiveness is through the fair-fight training ritual called the "Doghouse Release" (Bach & Bernhard, 1971, pp. 189190). This exercise is designed to give the couple a concrete way to let go of holding on to hurt feelings from the past by giving "a specific, time-limited penance" (p. 189) that the offending partner can do to be forgiven. It works best if the punishment fits the crime. For example, one couple used a "Doghouse Release" of having the husband cook them a gourmet dinner after he stood up his wife at a restaurant to work late. It must be clear, however, that the purpose of the ritual is for the couple to agree to forgive, not to undo the original act (which, of course, would be impossible.) Therapist Accountability No discussion of responsibility in communication should omit the therapist's part in accountability for the effectiveness of the therapy. Too often lack of progress in couples work is attributed to resistance on the part of one or both partners. In many cases, however, it may be a matter of the therapist failing to foster a positive, productive interaction between the partners in the treatment. Bandler and Grinder (1979) took therapists to task for this failure in no uncertain terms: You take the fact that what you do doesn't work and you blame it on the client. That relieves you of the responsibility of having to change your behavior. Or if you are slightly more humanistic about it, you "share in the guilt of the failure" or say he "wasn't ready." (p. 13)

As a therapist, sometimes simply acknowledging to yourself and communicating to the couple your own part in the lack of progress during therapy has the power to shift the direction of the treatment to a more positive level. It opens up the possibility for exploring new solutions and provides the couple with a model for dedicated speaking and accountability. Les and Lana came to therapy as a last resort before speaking with lawyers to begin divorce proceedings. Even though they

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had been married for nearly 10 years, they could not remember ever getting along or agreeing about anything. When the therapist would suggest that they do something or gave them an assignment, they would argue about it at home or even during sessions. After a few weeks, the therapist became frustrated and thought the couple might be untreatable. He shared his disappointment with them and acknowledged that he had been drawn into their story that they could never get along. He said that he was committed to their experiencing cooperation and creating a new possibility for their couple. He asked for the couple's help in doing that and asked their advice. They asked that he remind them frequently about the potential he saw and not to give up on them. Over the course of the next 6 months in treatment, the therapist did remind them frequently that he saw possibility for them as couple. Slowly they began to report they felt more hopeful and began to speak the possibility of staying together. Accepting Conflict and Negative Feelings A crucial part of taking responsibility for conflict in a relationship is acknowledging that it exists. Couples need to be reassured that conflict is not only inevitable but also necessary for the maintenance of a fulfilling relationship. The therapist should help them learn to look at it as an opportunity to create new methods for meeting their needs and taking their couple to a higher level of communication. It is helpful to let couples know that their level of discomfort over a conflict between them is, in fact, commensurate with the level of their commitment to their relationship. Many people avoid facing conflict, however, for fear of losing their partner or of being hurt emotionally, physically, or economically. They then suffer the costs of playing it safe— losing intimacy, honesty, joy, passion, and satisfaction in their relationship. Many couples are afraid to acknowledge their negative feelings of anger, hostility, jealousy, or aggression. They may be concerned about maintaining their own level of control or about their partner's reaction. Often they will go outside the relationship to complain or get support from someone else. It may be useful for the therapist to point out that when members of a couple

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look elsewhere for a confidant, intimacy between the partners usually suffers. One of them often feels shut out and excluded from the other relationship that is not part of their activity as a couple. It is unclear whether the development of an outside confidant occurs because of failures within the couple, or occurs first and contributes to a decrease in communication and weakening of the relationship. In any event, research shows that it results in reduced intimacy and a lingering sense of disappointment, emptiness, and occasional jealousy: Choosing one's spouse as a confidant is associated with the highest levels of marital satisfaction.... However, the lowest levels of marital satisfaction are found, not among those with no confidant, but among those who confide in persons other than their spouses. (Lee, 1988, pp. 281-282)

The outside confidant may seem, in fact, to compete with their couple. This may be true for the therapeutic relationship, as well, if only one of the members of a couple is involved in the therapy. It may be helpful in these cases to include some couples therapy, even if only occasionally or for a few sessions. This may prevent premature termination and facilitate the couple sharing their negative feelings and working together on therapeutic goals. Clients often avoid conflict because they do not understand the difference between impact and hostile aggression. Impact aggression is used to get the other person's attention while hostile aggression is designed to hurt the partner. The former allows for the constructive expression of negative feelings. "The instigation of fighting is by mutual consent, not just frustration; the expression is governed by mutually agreeable fair fight rules, and the objective of the fighting is change and catharsis but not injury" (Bach & Wyden, 1970, p. 365). The therapist should help to create a safe environment for sharing negative feelings by encouraging the couple to deal with them directly and fairly as soon as possible in the session. The creation of safety may require teaching one or both members of the couple the self-restraint necessary for a "fair fight": "When partners do not practice the necessary self-restraint, their unfettered emotional volatility makes it impossible for them to apply their communication skills,

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even if they have learned the techniques perfectly" (Powers, 2000, p. 105). To feel safe at home, some couples may need to be instructed to take a "time-out" for a half-hour or so and then resume their discussion. This helps avoid destructive escalation while still keeping the partners engaged in resolving the conflict. The therapist may point out to the partners that the longer they hold on to their anger or strong negative emotions, the more the resentment builds up. Unexpressed feelings (especially resentments) from the past affect relationships in the present. Therefore, it is important that the couple gets these feelings (the "unfinished business") out of the way so that they are able to concentrate on creating what they want for their relationship now. A 35-year-old woman in individual therapy who had already decided to get a divorce had held onto her resentments against her husband for years because, she said, "It wasn't fair to hurt him." "All's fair in love and war" is a useful framework for the couple if they follow the rules of a fair fight. In this context, raising one's voice, which sometimes scares or puts off a partner, can be framed for the couple as an expression of caring, commitment, and passion rather than criticism. Through fair fighting, Brenda and John, a couple discussed above, were able to resolve a conflict between them that had to do with Brenda's frequent visits to her grown children from her previous marriage. John acknowledged his pent-up feelings about her visits by sharing through the "Unfinished Business" exercise (see Exhibit 5.4) what was the "hardest part for him to take" about it. He could finally see the connection with his abandonment fears left over from childhood, and she could hear his shouting as a sign of his love for her. Once it became clear that he needed to hear Brenda say she would not leave him like his mother did, they were able to be couple about her visits and support each other more fully. As described above, once an area of conflict has been identified but before a detailed discussion or exercise to deal with it is begun, it is a good idea to have the couple re-create themselves as a committed entity by stating their couple proclamation together. No matter how upset the couple is, it is important not to go any further until this is done. A solid foundation of commitment and cooperation created by such dedicated speaking is

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EXHIBIT 5.4 Unfinished Business (Modeled After Fair Fight Training; Bach & Bernhard, 1971) This exercise will help you learn how to share unfinished feelings from the recent or distant past with your partner in a constructive manner. In doing this, both the speaker and the listener will learn to understand each other's feelings and gain important information for the couple.

Exercise Each of you thinks of some unfinished business you have with your partner. You may start with the most urgent business or flip a coin to determine who will be speaker first. SPEAKER:

"May I share some unfinished business with you?"

Always ask permission to present unfinished business. LISTENER: Agree or suggest another time within 48 hours. SPEAKER: Describe the incident involved, giving the details of what you remember as happening. Stick to the facts. Do not make accusations or statements about your partner's motives. LISTENER: Repeat the speaker's account of the event until your partner is satisfied that you have heard him or her accurately. Feed back what you heard. Don't add, interpret, argue, disagree, or defend yourself, even if you remember the incident differently. SPEAKER: Tell how you felt about the event at the time and how you feel about it now. Take responsibility for your own feelings; avoid blaming your mate for them. Use the word I to express how you feel, (e.g., "I feel angry" not "You made me feel angry"). LISTENER: Feed back the speaker's feelings until your partner is satisfied that you have heard him or her accurately. Just repeat what you heard. Use the process of mirroring what your partner says to enable you to slow down your reactions and take in what was said fully. SPEAKER: Make sure the listener feeds back your feelings accurately. If anything was incorrect or left out, explain that now. The speaker is just as responsible for the listener's understanding as is the listener. If you are not satisfied that your partner understands your feelings, keep working at it until you are sure you have fully communicated what you felt. continued

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EXHIBIT 5.4 Continued If unfinished business is negative: LISTENER: "What was there about what I did that you found the hardest to take?" Ask the speaker to describe what you said or did during the event that hurt or angered him or her the most. SPEAKER: Tell the listener what hurt or angered you the most. Be as specific as you can, using I statements and avoiding blame. Share your sensitive, vulnerable spot with the listener, so that your partner knows what particular attitude or behavior bothers you. LISTENER:

Feed back what you heard.

SPEAKER:

"Thank you for listening."

LISTENER:

"Thank you for sharing."

Sharing intimate feelings is a gift. You are thanking your partner for being willing to share his or her inner experience, not necessarily the content of what was shared. If unfinished business is positive: LISTENER: "What was there about what I said or did that you particularly liked?" SPEAKER: Tell the listener what you liked most about what he or she said or did during the event. LISTENER:

Feed back what you heard.

SPEAKER:

"Thank you for listening."

LISTENER:

"Thank you for sharing."

It is advisable to wait a while before switching roles to avoid using the exercise as a rebuttal for the first partner's sharing his or her feelings.

crucial to the progress of the couples work. Otherwise, a negative attitude about what is wrong with the relationship or with one another is fostered in the name of communication. A couple may feel overwhelmed by a particular conflict; but if they name it and proclaim it, they can tame it. With Brenda and John, the therapist had them stop and continue their discussion about her trip by stating their proclamation together: "We are soul mates for each other." The therapist

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reminded them of their joint vision several times during the session and had them repeat their proclamation again to keep themselves on the right track. The couple was given homework to continue this way of speaking at home, taking breaks from dealing with the issue of Brenda's visits to her children and then coming back to it, starting with their proclamation each time. They reported that this procedure "kept things from getting ugly" and allowed them both to feel safe while discussing the issue, which they had been unable to do in the past. Inquiring and Reframing The practices involved in achieving the Four Cs are best accomplished through a spirit of curiosity and questioning by both the therapist and the clients. Becoming a cocreating couple requires an attitude of joint inquiry and discovery. Rather than blaming each other or judging who is right and who is wrong, the couple learns a new way to relate and communicate. Teaching the couple how to question and accept the unknowns of a relationship helps make their life together more interesting and opens up more possibilities. This process of inquiry creates a spirit of collaboration between the partners and with the therapist as well. The therapist models such collaborative behavior by exploring possible interpretations and solutions with the couple rather than defining "the truth" for them with "delusions of certainty" (Hudson & O'Hanlon, 1991, p. 17). Using the language of possibility and inquiry, such as perhaps or maybe, invites the couple to cocreate solutions consistent with their own language and perspective. This approach helps to bypass resistance and to build confidence, and it encourages the couple to take responsibility for participating in the treatment. The practice of inquiry is particularly important when dealing with the sexual issues of a couple. An attitude of experimentation and exploration, rather than "doing it right," is crucial to the success of sex therapy exercises. It is also the core of the initial history taking, which is a joint collaboration between the couple and the therapist in discovering possible causes of sexual dysfunction.

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Stating and repeating their couple proclamation is a simple way for couples to stay on a positive track when dealing with difficult issues. Another way to help couples deal with speaking their negative feelings is through a technique called reframing (Bandler & Grinder, 1979; Watzlawick et al., 1974). This procedure involves renaming something negative and dysfunctional into something positive and functional, thereby shifting an old paradigm into a new possibility. People use this powerful tool to create stories or explanations about their own and others' behavior; the problem is that then they get attached to these stories as the truth. When couples use this tool to tell each other what is wrong with their partner or their couple, it may be honest, but it is very destructive to the relationship. It is important to teach the partners to use language to promote acceptance and cooperation, not blame and self-righteousness. However, challenging clients' stories head on will often be met with defensiveness. Offering other possible explanations through various types of reframing is an effective way to get past these feelings. As stated above, the therapist needs to continue looking for ways to move through what looks like resistance. Accepting the couple's reality, but also helping them to shift their perspective by translating their concerns into something less critical and more hopeful, usually promotes more positive thinking and speaking. One way to accomplish this shift is to help the couple identify the cultural barriers or external circumstances affecting their current situation (see chap. 7, this volume). Then they can practice reframing the problem into something resulting from those obstacles, rather than it being something wrong with each other. (This is consistent with the technique of externalization used in narrative therapy.) Sharon and Ron, the young couple described above, responded immediately to a change in focus with a sense of relief and hope. They came in to therapy initially exhausted and hopeless, complaining about each other's lack of attention, support, and appreciation. Their feelings were reframed by the therapist as a normal reaction to the pressure of having Ron's mother and grandmother living with them in the same house with two small children for several years. They were then able

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to look for new ways to overcome this obstacle in their life together, rather than try to fix each other. This gave them something to do rather than just complain, starting with the creation of the proclamation "We back each other up one hundred percent." Another way to accomplish reframing for couples is to translate for them by "putting words in their mouths" (Hudson & O'Hanlon, 1991) that "add positive, productive statements and block critical, provoking, or blaming statements during the therapy session" (p. 41). Wes and Rhonda were a couple who had been married and fighting for most of the 15 years of their marriage (the second for both). Rhonda came to therapy one day complaining that she was "tired of Wes coming home every night complaining about work!" When the therapist reframed this as his way of wanting to connect with her, she was able to turn her complaint into a request for him to take time to be together when he got home. This immediately defused her anger and created a whole new possibility for their relationship. The therapist may have the couple create their own reframe of a negative situation by having them create several different names for a negative event or behavior in their relationship. Carl and Jane did this in their couples' therapy group during the marital affair crisis in their life. Jane was questioning the marriage and Carl's sincerity; Carl was talking about giving up and "shoving it under the rug." The therapist asked the group to come up with some reframes for what was going on for Carl and Jane. One of the group members said it was part of their struggle with the commitment that was so important to them; another suggested that they were in the thick of negotiations and needed a "total amnesty." This led to Carl and Jane agreeing to work on developing a new couple proclamation, which they then did. The therapist might also help the partners reframe their complaints by having them speak in terms of making progress rather than describing what is wrong. A partner can then reframe what might have been seen as a complaint into an acknowledgment that demonstrates paying attention to or caring for the other person. For example, a therapist had the wife of a couple, even though she was angry, acknowledge her husband for calling to say that he was coming home late as a demonstration of their

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beginning to work together as a team. Reinforcing a partner's desired behavior through acknowledgment of their attempts to make things better increases satisfaction in the couple during good times and decreases ill will during the difficult times. It also shifts the partners' perceptions of each other as well as themselves in a positive direction, which fosters intimacy and strengthens the overall relationship. Teaching the couple to rename a behavior or cognition that had been negative or lifeless into something positive and enlivening impacts the couple's experience in a proactive way. Giving it a new name can breathe energy into it. Rather than staying upset, hoping for a change, or blaming each other, the couple learns to create new choices through powerful language. The skill of reframing is thus a must for the couples therapist in helping the partners change their perspective on each other's behavior and intention.

Acknowledging Perhaps the most important element of creating true partnership through dedicated speaking is the communication of acknowledgment, the process of noticing and appreciating something positive that a person has said or done. This simple act of attention is what people need most, even more than love, to function well (Barren, 1988). Basic principles of behaviorism have demonstrated clearly that rewarding and reinforcing positive behavior is much more effective than punishing or trying to change unwanted behaviors: What is reinforced tends to reoccur and persist; what is ignored tends to disappear. Gottman (1994) has demonstrated, in fact, that happy couples communicate positive statements to each other five times more often (a ratio of 5:1 positive to negative statements made to the partner) than do unhappy couples (a ratio of 1:1). The dictionary definition of acknowledge is a good reference point for assessing a couple's level of progress in achieving dedicated speaking and listening. If they are practicing acknowledgment in both meanings of the word, they are on the right track. The primary definition given by Webster's Dictionary (1975) is "to own or recognize by avowal or by some act." Although not found in all dictionaries, this definition speaks about the essential

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aspect of communication between couples that we have referred to as taking responsibility for both one's own behavior and the condition of the relationship. This active process requires avowal through dedicated speaking or some specific action. So each partner takes responsibility—not blame—for his or her own behavior as it affects the couple. It is important that the couple be directed to practice acknowledgment in the spirit of couple, using it as an opportunity for generosity, not for punishment or selfrighteousness. The second meaning of acknowledge is also crucial to the success of the couple: "to express thanks or appreciation for; to show gratitude for." As discussed above, just expressing feelings of love is not enough to maintain a cocreating relationship. Principles of behavioral therapy have demonstrated that a little bit of positive reinforcement for a specific act goes a long way in producing desired behavior. Nowhere is this more obvious than in couples therapy, where an expression of appreciation is able to turn the entire couple system around on a dime, suddenly shifting the context from negative to positive. Frequent acknowledgment—that is, continually noting and communicating trust, respect, and caring attention to each other —is characteristic of the way close friends operate. It is quite helpful, then, to teach couples to see their couple entity as a friendship and to treat each other as they would their good friends, rather than take each other for granted. It is also important that the partners recognize that any acknowledgment should include the couple as an entity, not just the person acknowledged. If acknowledgment is given or expected only in terms of the individual, it may lack the power to support the couple as a whole; if a partner desires appreciation for his or her part separately without awareness and acknowledgment of how it comes from and contributes to couple, it will not have much lasting value for the relationship. For example, if a wife wants to be acknowledged for how hard she has worked to get a raise, she must also recognize how her stay-at-home husband has supported their progress through his efforts with childcare and home management. Then her acknowledgement may sound like "I acknowledge us for working together to make it possible to get a raise." Unlike the paradigm of individualism, this perspective

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is more similar to the Eastern philosophy of a nondual state of awareness, operating from a base that is beyond individual ego or identity. In the same way, partners can lose connection with the base of their couple if they seek acknowledgment for themselves individually rather than from the context of their joint vision. It is not enough for the therapist to teach the couple to express acknowledgment; the therapist must also monitor how an acknowledgment is received and experienced by the other partner. The speaker must learn to express acknowledgment in such a way that the listener can accept it. The therapist facilitates this process by encouraging the couple to be clear enough in their expression to create "videotalk" in the service of creating "meaningful praise" (Hudson & O'Hanlon, 1979, p. 33). On the other side, the therapist needs to make sure the listener is accepting the praise and letting the appreciation sink in. Often a partner will avoid experiencing recognition fully out of embarrassment or excessive humility; sometimes a person does not want to experience the sadness that may come from feeling the acknowledgment that has been missed for so long. The process of acknowledging is particularly significant at the termination of treatment. The emphasis on being complete with the process of therapy offers many opportunities for acknowledgment of the couple by both the partners and the therapist and of the therapist by the couple. It is usually a good sign of readiness for termination when the couple acknowledges each other and the therapist directly for what has been accomplished. It is also important to leave space for this important communication in the closing sessions of therapy. A powerful example of acknowledgment during termination occurred at the last session of an open-ended couples therapy group with all the couples completing their work at the same time. While enjoying food and champagne that the couples brought, everyone spontaneously acknowledged their spouses and shared how much the community of the group had meant to them, and how much they appreciated the help and modeling of the therapists. Then, one of the members of the group who had served in Vietnam and had been reticent to share his personal feelings to his wife or the group reported a dream he had had that week. He had never been a

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very good dancer, and he and his wife had started taking dance lessons a few weeks earlier. He told the group that in the dream, he saw himself and his wife along with the rest of the group dancing together, "coordinated in unison." Then he cried and told those present how much he missed his Vietnam buddies and how valuable the experience of being in the group had been for him and their couple. Opportunities for sharing positive attention and acknowledgment are prevalent. However, couples—and sometimes therapists as well—are often stingy with it at times when it could be very helpful. Couples usually come in to therapy talking about what they don't like or want in the relationship. Therapists often reinforce this kind of communication by asking questions about their complaints. This makes it harder to direct the conversation toward acknowledging anything positive, let alone in a way that has some real impact. If something positive is shared, it is often expressed in such a vague or reluctant way that it is ultimately ineffective in reinforcing the desired behavior. Some practitioners may have learned in their clinical training to see giving acknowledgment directly to clients as inappropriate; they may also not have received it personally in their own supervision or elsewhere. Without some modeling and experience of acknowledgment in their lives, it may be difficult for therapists and clients alike to include it in their repertoire of behavior. Certainly, therapists need to be judicious and careful about giving acknowledgment to clients or supervisees, but we often fail to use its power when it can be most effective. Exercises and assignments. From the perspective of the couple as an entity, teaching and practicing specific exercises in acknowledgment is very powerful. Most couples have come into therapy too angry, depressed, or distracted to take the time and attention to acknowledge each other regularly. To overcome these tendencies, the therapist may ask the couple to acknowledge each other every day for a week as homework, or they may build such a practice into an ongoing couple contract or a proclamation. One couple created a proclamation, "We appreciate each other," which reminded them to acknowledge each other every day.

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Acknowledgment is something that couples often overlook; the lack of it may leave them feeling incomplete about some important events or accomplishments in their lives. Both during and outside the sessions, we suggest couples acknowledge each other frequently for things they might normally take for granted, such as doing the laundry, taking care of a sick child, doing the driving, and so forth. They may make a list of such things and share it at the end of the day or at the next therapy session. It adds an element of playfulness and suspense for the partners to keep their lists secret until the session, or for them to do some special things for each other and see if they are noticed. Whatever method is used, the therapist should make sure the partners share by saying "I appreciate .. ." or "I acknowledge you for . . ." rather than "I want (or would like) to acknowledge you for..."—a common colloquialism that dilutes the immediate impact of the acknowledgment. The couple may also be encouraged between sessions to request acknowledgment for something they said or did that may have gone unrecognized by their partner. People sometimes argue that appreciation is worthless if they have to ask for it. Reminding the couple that such a request supports the couple and that the couple is the source of the acknowledgment helps to counter this resistance.

Assessing Communication Assessing communication skills is something that therapists do as a matter of course. Most have training in identifying when this skill is lacking, both verbal and nonverbal, though many ignore the nonverbal and sexual areas. Below are a few guiding questions to ask about the presence and the quality of communication in a couple. Basic Questions 1. How well do you feel that your partner understands you? 2. How well do you communicate with each other?

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3. How well do you communicate with each other nonverbally, physically, sexually?

Additional Questions 1. Do you argue about little things? 2. Do you often guess what your partner is thinking? 3. Does your partner think he or she can read your mind most of the time? 4. Are you embarrassed by your partner in front of other people? 5. Does your partner berate you, put you down, or talk down to you? 6. Are you completely honest with each other? 7. Do you often avoid conflict by being quiet? 8. Do you share your feelings and affection openly? 9. Are you satisfied with your sex life? 10. What is your favorite way of touching each other?

Conclusion Many factors create obstacles to the effective expression of feelings both in and out of the therapy session. Thus, it is important that therapists include some specific communication training about expressing thoughts and feelings, both positive (acknowledgement and affection) and negative (anger and hurt), during this third C phase of the therapy. Again, it is crucial that the tasks of commitment and cooperation be accomplished before proceeding in detail or depth with communication practices. Without these cornerstones of the couple as a cooperative entity in place, any communication may be resisted, fall flat, be ineffective, or even destructive.

Chapter

6 Community he fourth component of a well-functioning couple, which is rarely addressed in traditional therapy, is community. We became aware of the importance of community for couples several years ago during interviews with people who reported being happily married for long periods. A common theme that emerged regarding their ability to stay together was that they all had a powerful sense of connection with another couple or group of couples with whom they were close friends. In many cases, couples became friends with other couples, which led to the development of groups of couples in neighborhoods or through connections with extended families. As significant as being a part of a community seems to be, we have found that it is missing in the lives of a large number of struggling couples. A number of factors seem to be involved. The cultural preoccupation with individualism may contribute to a breakdown in relationships both within and between couples. In addition, social and physical mobility make it difficult to form stable ongoing relationships with other couples and families. Changing jobs, neighborhoods, or geographical regions makes it problematic to sustain the closeness necessary to maintain friendships. The high frequency of divorce and unhappy marriages also adds to the problem of maintaining meaningful ongoing connections between couples.

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Even though the electronic communications revolution makes it easier to stay in touch by e-mail or telephone, lack of physical proximity to friends creates challenges to real intimacy. Especially for couples, it is more effective to get to know each other by going to the movies or having dinner together than to send an e-mail or even speak on the phone. Moreover, though individuals may be able to make contact electronically in some ways, it is more awkward for couples to do so. Group or couple interactions are more difficult to capture through virtual means than are oneto-one interactions. In addition, activities for couples are not always easy to arrange except in neighborhoods or through already established communities such as churches or work settings. Even when these meetings do occur, it is often only with one other couple, or two at the most. Furthermore, gatherings of couples often result in concurrent, gender-specific activities rather than couple activities. The problems related to lack of community for couples are highlighted by the following case. Married for 9 years with four sons aged 8, 7, 5, and 3, Ian and Rebecca came to therapy complaining of difficulty communicating. Ian said that his wife did not really understand him and constantly berated him for being a poor father and unresponsive lover. The therapist began by helping them to examine their commitment to each other and to their family. Both remembered a torrid courtship and fun times together. They reported that their decision to have children represented an acknowledgment of their deep love and care for one another. The stress of parenting pulled them away from each other as she stayed at home with the kids and he worked harder to make a decent living for them. By focusing on the warm and secure feeling of their young love experience, the therapist helped them recommit to their relationship in the present and create a vision and the positive proclamation "We are safe and secure together." After working in therapy for nearly 6 months, Ian and Rebecca felt much more confident about their relationship, their parenting alliance, and their feelings for each other. They were able to cooperate better in dealing with financial pressures and school problems experienced by their oldest child. In addition, they could discuss their feelings and fears frankly together, because

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they knew that neither of them was leaving. As they discussed the possibility of ending treatment, they reported how much they were enjoying sessions; it was not just a place to report problems but an avenue to express their progress. At a recent neighborhood cookout, when asked by friends how their relationship was going (some had noticed their previous distress), they said it was great. Although both Rebecca and Ian were eager to share their happiness and progress with others, they found that the other couples did not have much interest in listening. Instead, they preferred to complain about their own partners. They were surprised that no one seemed to be interested in their obvious happiness together. In fact, their community seemed to be more curious about their problems than about their gains. They noticed that they were not invited to the next neighborhood get-together, and they were not that interested in going now, even if they had been asked. Because they lived in a rural area, somewhat isolated from others, they now felt lonely as a couple. Therapy sessions were a place to feel connected to their joy and a chance to talk with someone who was really happy for them. Neither Ian nor Rebecca had families of origin nearby. She was estranged from her folks and his now-divorced parents and siblings were spread out around the country. To address the lack of community support in their lives, the therapist referred them to a couples therapy group where they could share their feelings and create new possibilities for their relationship with others. The therapist also made another suggestion: T: Now that you feel good about your relationship, what else might you do to support enjoying being couple outside of therapy? I: Well, we do miss having friends. It is odd that we finally enjoy being together more than ever, but we don't seem to be with friends as much. T: Why do you think that is? I: Because many of our friends are not in really good relationships. When we get together they take us aside individually and complain about their partners.

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R: Most of the people we know we met first as singles, or Ian met them at work, or I did at my studio. T: Do you have any friends you met as a couple? I: What do you mean? T: Most of the folks you spend time with are not in relationships. Why don't you go make friends as a couple with another couple or two? R: You mean find someone who seems to be in a good relationship and do something together with them? T: Yes. That way you can be in relationship with others who already are valuing what you value. It would be like building a small community where relationships are important. R: That sounds interesting; let's try that. I: OK.

Looking for potential friends who were already in good relationships proved helpful to them, and they rapidly found two new families with whom they could share time and activities together.

Background Work: The Need for Community As we discussed earlier, it is important for couples therapists to remember that among the many cultural barriers individuals confront when trying to sustain a healthy relationship is a tendency to support individualism and to disdain collectivism. Amitai Etzioni (1993) clearly captured the importance of community or Communitarianism, as he called it, and its relationship to individuality: Neither human existence nor individual liberty can be sustained for long outside the interdependent and overlapping communities to which all of us belong. Nor can any community long survive unless its members dedicate some of their attention, energy, and resources to shared projects. The exclusive pursuit of private interest erodes the network of social environments on which we all depend and is de-

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structive to our experiment in democratic self-government. For these reasons, we hold that the rights of individuals cannot long be preserved without a Communitarian perspective, (p. 253)

Like the dialectical question regarding individualism and collectivism, once couple entities are formed, as illustrated in the case above, cultural and social forces often still prevent them from coming together in viable communities. Whereas facilities exist to support individuals in forming couples, such as singles bars or match-making vacation opportunities, there is an erroneous assumption that once they have formed a couple, there is little need for the support of a larger community. Honeymoon hotels or romantic getaways are designed for a couple to be together with one another and family resorts arrange communal activities for children, but rarely are there collective venues designed for couples to be together in association with other couples. Where such opportunities do exist, such as in churches, in clubs, or elsewhere, they appear to be educational programs to preserve or fix relationships, rather than providing a chance to celebrate couplehood together or just enjoy a larger sense of community. They are designed to help couples survive more than to thrive. Participation in community groups, civic activities, politics, clubs, and even group recreation and group socializing continues to decline in the United States, for individuals as well as couples. In his book, Bowling Alone (2000), Putnam noted that though more people were involved in activities such as bowling, fewer people were joining leagues or group activities. He cites many factors that contribute to this trend away from community involvement, including (a) more dual-career couples (making it difficult to have friends for dinner when no one is at home to prepare it); (b) increased demands for productivity (resulting in less time to spend at the bar with friends); (c) more commuting time required (leading to less time to spend in a club activity); (d) more financial pressure to earn money to sustain everyday life (resulting in less time or resources to have a hobby or play on a team); and (e) the advent of television and air conditioning (keeping people inside and more isolated). Individuals are more likely than ever to engage in recreational activities by themselves,

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rather than on teams or with friends, because of time constraints and the difficulties of putting groups together. Even when they do get together with a partner, individuals are often faced with a lack of community support for their couple. The societal pressure against forming community ties, clearly present for individuals in our culture, deprives couples of community support as well. Some of the pressure exerted against creating couples and couple communities comes from family members and friends in each partner's personal environment. Many groups of single and even married people are unwilling to support the development of intimate couples, as it makes their friends less available to them. This is particularly the case in the middle stages of a courtship, when the partners become more involved with each other behaviorally and emotionally (Johnson & Leslie, 1982; Johnson & Milardo, 1984). We described above how romantic couples typically focus less and less on friends and family, and more on each other. Other people in their lives may feel resentful of this shift in priorities. So rather than supporting the couple, they demand more time from each partner individually. This kind of interference with the maintenance of a couple is a problem unique to humans; rarely in the animal kingdom do two partners have to deal with such complexity of external social systems when forming a sexual bond. Therapists may conceive of the ways the culture has of interfering with the establishment of couple as network interference, that is, "anxiety among network constituents, who either separately or collectively may attempt to interfere with the romantic dyad to prevent their continued social regression" (Johnson & Milardo, 1984, p. 893). People often scrutinize their friends' potential partners and sometimes discourage their friends from being included in joint activities. It is as if the partner has to be accepted into the tribe or club before approval of the relationship is sanctioned. Parents, siblings, and other relatives often resist the loss of an individual family member to a committed partnership outside the family. If the individual has provided substantial financial or emotional support within the family, relatives may find it especially hard to let the person go. The family members, either individually or collectively, may even subtly or overtly thwart the development of

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an intimate relationship outside the family circle. This behavior is especially prevalent in intercultural or inter faith relationships. In addition, as people tend to marry later in life, sometimes older family members have come to expect their adult child's presence, and they often exert pressure to maintain the status quo. This creates greater difficulty in establishing both a couple relationship and a supportive community of couples as well. Sharon and Ron, a couple mentioned earlier, found this to be the case when Ron's mother, who lived with them, said she was "too tired" to continue to watch their two young children while they went out socially or for their couples therapy. Ron had a weekend job, and she had been used to his staying at home with her to help take care of the children and his grandmother, who also lived with them. Family pressure and lack of support from the family network had become a barrier to Sharon and Ron fostering an intimate relationship or developing community relationships as couple. They were eventually referred to a couples therapy group, got a babysitter, and began to see the value and support of being with other couples.

The Benefits of Community Given the difficulties in maintaining communities, couples therapists need to ask, "What are the benefits of such community affiliations that would make them worth fighting for?" There are three benefits of couples connecting in communities that are most obvious on the basis of clinical experience. Therapists should be sensitive to which of these factors might have the most positive impact on their clients given their history and progress in therapy. The first benefit of community to couples is observing other positive models of commitment. People who have parents in long-term relationships always learn from them; they see what has worked and gain support to do the same in their relationships. We often lament that because the divorce rate has climbed over the past 3 decades, the number of partners whose parents were divorced or never married has increased as well. Commitment makes more sense to couples when they are able to observe

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the positive effects of it in the lives of others. Sometimes these models are generational, passing down ways of being together as a couple from the older to the newer generation. This is particularly important, because adults from divorced families have been shown to be less likely to enter into marriages themselves (Wallerstein, Lewis, & Blakeslee, 2000). Other positive models are peers who have managed to stay together and have been able to thrive through rough periods. Communities of couples allow partners to see what might be possible for them in the future or help them with problems in the present. Such communities may be composed of extended families, close friends of parents, college friend couples, or teachers and mentors who are in lasting relationships. A young couple recently spent time with the husband's parents who had been sailing around the world for 5 years after retirement, just the two of them. Though the young couple expected being on the boat to be an isolating experience, they discovered that the parents were actually able to connect at various portsof-call with a community of other couples who were also sailing together. During their voyage, they were also constantly in contact with their children, who marveled at how two people married so long could sail a boat alone together for 5 years. The lessons learned by the young couple for their own marriage were immense and reinforced their commitment to each other. The second benefit from communities of couples is the opportunity for ongoing feedback to one another. Friends often get together to seek advice or ideas regarding making a job decision, parenting, or buying a new stove. For some reason, though, it seems difficult to ask friends who are in a couple about how they have solved their marital problems. The level of sharing about sex, intimacy, or finances is lower between couples than between individuals. Perhaps people are frightened that they will look like failures if they admit to having problems. It is clear, nonetheless, to anyone who has ever been in a serious relationship that problems abound. Open discussions between couples about problems they have in common and possible solutions have a significantly positive effect on their relationship.

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In addition to problem solving, couples are often in a good position to give feedback to one another about what they observe. This process of feedback may be something that is done in marital therapy, but it can be continued during and after treatment with friends who care and who speak from their own experience. Sharing by one couple about how they have related to and learned from another couple opens up the possibility of ongoing learning. Most couples do not realize that other couples may notice things that they do not see themselves. Couples may have distinct personalities or be unaware of how they act with each other. Having friends who are also in a couple share what they see is immensely useful. ("Do you notice that whenever Kal speaks, you interrupt him?" "Did you notice that whenever Jim tells you how much he loves you, you always change the subject?" "It seems like you hardly ever acknowledge Paul for how much he does for your couple.") Getting together with good friends who are also in a committed relationship to talk about what works and what problems exist creates a feeling of support and hope for the future. Couples also get some really good ideas about things to do that might work or be fun. ("Last night Sally and I had a whipped cream fight, and it was about the most fun we ever had.") A third benefit of community for couples is the chance to empathize with one another and share common experiences. It is common for parents, especially those with young children, to talk with other parents about what they are experiencing. The same is true for couples, although most of them report it is difficult to share problems about their spouse or partner. (Remind them that sharing can include talking about positives as well as problems.) For instance, many people feel that having a child is a new experience and a certain amount of ignorance is to be expected, whereas a partner is someone you should know more about. Some think that sharing concerns about a partner may reveal weakness or poor judgment on their part for selecting that person. Most people expect that they should know a person completely when becoming committed to them and that finding out anything new later on reflects a lack of foresight or good ' judgment on their part. In fact, therapists know that relationships

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are very dynamic, and couples are constantly learning new things about their partners and themselves. Therefore, it is important to point out to clients that getting together with other couples to share insights together with a positive intent creates a sense of security, warmth, and optimism. Developing a community of couples is something that definitely aids therapy by providing additional information and support to clients. It is also important to be certain that couples leaving therapy either prematurely or after finishing treatment are able to benefit from continuing community connections. This sense of connectedness, spoken of by Putnam (2000), Powers (2001), Zaiss (2002), Montouri and Conti (1993), and others, is necessary for the well-being of the couple as well as the individual: Common sense and a lot of good theory strongly suggest that a lack of sense of connectedness, of a feeling of wider belonging and purpose, and of a feeling of making a difference in the world fosters chronic tension, chronic irritability and anger, emotional isolation, frustration and impatience, and cynicism or despair. These feelings and attitudes undermine individual well-being directly, and do so indirectly by eating away at the social fabric of family, work environments, and community life. (Richardson & Zeddies, 2001, p. 215)

Most people want to feel connected to their significant other; when the relationship is supported by a feeling of community, the chances of the partners staying together are greatly increased. "Independence is not a high enough goal . . . Interdependence is the next step in our evolution. This can only be developed through out interconnectedness" (Ziass, 2002, p. 48). Just wanting a relationship and interconnectedness is not enough, however; making sure that clients are connected to communities of some form or other is a necessary component of treatment. As Powers (2000) pointed out, "Our fragmented community life is regrettable and sorely in need of remedy, and there is little doubt that a richer communal life would help strengthen marriages" (p. 197). There are a number of ways the couples therapist may address the task of connecting to communities, as described in the following pages.

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Discovering Communities For many couples, communities already exist around them. These communities may involve parents and extended family members, what we call vertical communities, or they may involve peers and friends, or horizontal communities. Clients may, however, be unaware of them, for a number of reasons, or be unwilling to join them. The most common communities for couples are friends, family members, church or temple members, neighbors, and colleagues from work or school. The people in these groups may not be in committed relationships, but in most cases at least one community with a few couples in it can be found. The therapist should encourage the couple to look carefully for these communities in places they least expect. They may be used to looking for individuals to relate to and not accustomed to finding others in relationships. People tend to meet individuals and only secondarily determine if they are in couple relationships. It might be easy to get a cup of coffee or have a drink with a friend at a local bar, but where do groups of couples hang out where they can talk? It is common in individual therapy to give a client the assignment of meeting new people or trying to identify potential friends in the workplace or elsewhere. The same may be done for the couple entity. (This involves some cooperation and communication on the couple's part, so both of these tasks should already have been addressed.) The therapist might suggest that couples begin by working together to create ways to find another couple to make friends with. Then the therapist may suggest they do something together with that couple; their relationship can be the topic of dinner conversation, and they can share stories of how they met. People often hear some amazing stories and are even surprised by how their own couple's saga is seen by others. This dinner conversation will likely turn out to be much more interesting and diverting than a discussion of current events or problems at work. Brainstorm with your clients to find some places to look for community. Have them talk about the qualities they would look for in other couples with whom they might feel comfortable. This process is very revealing. Notice if their skills at cooperating

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are working as they try to come to some consensus. Encourage them to experiment by approaching a variety of couples. Some couples may feel constrained to just look for community in certain places. For instance, gay or lesbian couples may feel that their community must be predominantly people of similar sexual orientation. This may not be necessary, and they may find that heterosexual couples they meet or already know are able to relate very well to them and vice versa. The same is true about race, religion, and ethnic origin. Help your clients look for the qualities in other couples that they admire, and encourage them to approach those people in their existing communities. See if your clients would join a group or community where they might find appealing couples to meet. Some couples may find that they already live in communities that naturally include couples, but they have never seen it that way. They should be encouraged to find communities that already exist in their lives: a church committee, a work group at the office, a sports team, or the local homeowners association. These are all good places to look for couples support and become part of a community.

Creating Communities Couple communities do not always occur naturally or spontaneously, however. As a result of social mobility or transience related to work or career, many couples often find themselves in new or unfamiliar places. The stresses they experience as a result of new social or physical surroundings may make it difficult to spend time together as a couple. When leisure time is possible for the two of them, it may be problematic to find other couples or communities to be with. Even a couple, not just an individual, may experience a sense of isolation, which often puts more stress on the relationship to meet all the intimacy and interpersonal needs of the partners. Couples often come to therapy following a move to a new place and disconnection with a previous community, such as a family group or close friends. Establishing a new community for their couple to live in may seem like a low priority in the face of marital conflict or unhappiness, but support from a community will help them get through the difficult adjustment

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period more effectively. Just as making a new friend often lightens one's mood, making couple friends does the same for a relationship. If there is no obvious, attractive, or available community for a couple to join as described above, it is necessary to support clients in creating their own. Most clients do not realize that communities are usually started by someone getting together with someone else. It merely takes some interest and initiative to do so. Like a tradition, a community starts with a single act or idea to reach out to someone, in this case as a couple. If clients complain that there is no neighborhood feeling where they live, suggest that they sponsor a block party or a community barbeque. One couple who felt this way arranged a get-together in their neighborhood social hall, and it became an ongoing activity for many couples in their community. As they begin to feel stronger in treatment and resolve their issues, let couples know that they have the power to attract others to them. We often say, "You are a powerful couple now; other couples will want to be like you." They have the power to create community around them. Not all client couples may be ready to reach out on their own right away. Some may need more therapeutic support. Another way of creating communities for couples is through the development of couples therapy groups. Eric Berne (1961) believed that couples groups were the most effective and powerful of all therapeutic practices. We often refer committed couples to such groups after seeing them alone if their skills in maintaining their relationship are still a bit fragile or if, for some reason, they are physically or emotionally isolated. Jill and Rob were members of a couples therapy group. They had been married for nearly 25 years and lived in a rural area where she was a teacher, and he was a farmer. Unable to have children of their own, they adopted three young children with significant learning and behavior problems. Since the time of the adoptions, Jill and Rob had dealt with one crisis after another with their children, who were now in their late teens and early 20s. They often disagreed on how to respond to the challenges of parenting and fought about which of them should take responsibility for their children's continuing problems. Everything they

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had to do legally and practically to keep their children and their household together was exhausting to both of them. They came into group after a brief course of couples therapy because they could not agree on almost anything in their daily lives. Although they were clear that they would not get divorced, each still felt unsupported and unloved by the other. Other couples in the group said they were inspired by the courage and conviction that Jill and Rob had brought to their family. Against incredible odds, they had raised children in a loving household even though these young people had such unhealthy beginnings before their adoption. The couples in the group began to share their own parenting experiences and problems with their much healthier offspring and their admiration for this couple. They supported Jan and Rob through a legal and medical crisis with their children and encouraged them to see their own power in parenting and their obvious commitment to one another. Jill and Rob began to feel the support and sense of community in the group. With this encouragement, they overcame their guilt, took some time for themselves, gave more responsibility to their kids, and even placed one child in an inpatient setting for a time. They began to feel better about their parenting, themselves, and their relationship. The group was nourishing and supportive for them and allowed them to focus again on their love and commitment. A therapy group consisting of three to five couples is a good size for treatment purposes. The group may be time-limited or open-ended, though a minimum commitment of 10 to 12 sessions seems to work best. The group may meet weekly or twice a month with optional sessions for particular couples by themselves between group sessions. Committed couples of any age or sexual orientation can be in the same group together. (Persons with severe personality disorders, psychosis, or active current substance abuse conditions are usually not appropriate for the group.) Couples of varying degrees of functionality can work well together as the group functions as a container for both dysfunctional and functional individuals and couples. The group provides participants with a secure context for being couple. It is a place where they can get along as a couple, argue as a couple,

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EXHIBIT 6.1 Couples Croup Agreements 1. Each couple will make a 3-month commitment to the group. 2. One month's notice will be given in the group prior to termination. 3. Each group member is financially responsible for all group sessions to which they have committed. This includes sessions missed. 4. Payment for the sessions is due on the last of each month for the preceding month's sessions. 5. Each group member or couple will give notification of any sessions they will miss. 6. Each group member is responsible for bringing to the group all significant contacts made with other group members outside the group sessions. 7. Each group member will write a contract of what they are committed to work on while in the group. The contract will reflect the group norms for contracts. 8. All identifying information about any person in the group or mentioned in the group process is confidential.

or even sulk or withdraw from each other. Security as well as boundaries are established initially through group agreements reviewed with each couple during screening (See Exhibit 6.1; Sheras & Koch-Sheras, 1998). Agreements cover such issues as confidentiality, payment, and goals. Each couple agrees to design a project or goal that they commit to work on during the group. Examples of contracted goals include the following: n D

We will work as a team to finish renovating our bathroom to our mutual satisfaction. We will do physical exercise for 20 to 30 minutes at least three times a week, with at least one time of exercising done together as couple.

In group, participant couples share their experiences, practice their proclamations and cooperation skills, and celebrate their accomplishments together. One of the positive characteristics of these groups is that members not only share about themselves, but also appreciate and acknowledge the accomplishments of

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others, as was seen with Jill and Rob. The couples are models for dealing with both positive and negative outcomes. The therapist merely focuses and directs the energy of the members, and clients are often surprised to see the common experiences they share with other couples regardless of age or experience. Although it is helpful to have cotherapists, married or not, to serve as a model, it is not necessary to do so. An individual therapist with experience in couples and group therapy may accomplish the work as well. It is important for one or both therapists to work with a couple for several sessions before they enter the group until the commitment to their relationship is affirmed and their preparation for group work is completed. Clients who complete group treatment are more confident about their ability to go back home and create supportive couple communities for themselves. Couples have started a regular dinner gathering with friends, organized a couples bridge club, and reached out to their extended families. Jeremy and Jack, for instance, had just moved when they came in for therapy. They had been together in a gay relationship for 2 years and felt committed to each other. They argued frequently, however, and were very jealous of each other. When one returned home late, the other was always angry, regardless of the excuse. They had moved from a community on the West Coast where they met. They reported feeling close to a lot of people there and spent time regularly with a group of couples at the beach or at someone's house. The therapist realized that Jeremy and Jack were feeling the loss of community more than anything else. Each became afraid that they would lose the other, which led to jealousy and anger. With support from the therapist, they entered a couples group where they heard many other couples (mostly heterosexual) expressing similar concerns about fears of abandonment. From their experience in group treatment, they were encouraged to find other communities. They took on a fundraising project together for a local HIV/AIDS residence and began to feel more accepted by others. They found a group of friends with whom they had a lot in common and completed group therapy. In this case, the fourth C, community, had been the missing piece in their treatment.

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Educational and Support Communities Up to this point, we have talked about community primarily as a way to maintain therapeutic gains. Therapists are increasingly aware that they must look at interventions not only to address couple dysfunction but also to examine how to prevent problems for those who come for premarital or marital counseling. Many practitioners now work as coaches or consultants in prevention areas, trying to decrease the probability of conflict in school, workplaces, and relationships. Enrichment programs such as Marriage Encounter (www.marriage-encounter.com) and Marriage Savers (www.marriagesavers.com) are both training programs performed through churches and synagogues; PREP (Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program, www. prepinc.com), and PAIRS (Practical Application of Intimate Relationship Skills, www.pairs.com) attempt to head off problems before they become serious. A major difficulty with these endeavors is that they lack meaningful follow-up of sustained participation. A weekend retreat or occasional seminar may help, but more structure is usually needed to maintain gains. Although these programs are predicated on the notion that group support and development of a sense of community are important, unfortunately there is little incentive or commitment for couples to continue working on modes of prevention. In addition, therapists may contribute to the problem by seeing prevention and support for the couple as an entity as less important than merely teaching people to handle their anger and get along. The only secular low-cost program we know of that provides prevention as well as supports couples in communities in an ongoing fashion is Couples Coaching Couples (CCC). Begun in Virginia in 1990 by ourselves and three other couples, CCC Inc. (www.couplescoachingcouples.org), a nonprofit organization, offers a protocol for supporting committed couples to coach one another in their relationships. A couple enters into an agreement with another couple to both coach them and receive coaching from them on being a couple entity together. Participant couples assess and demonstrate their own couple power to others, show commitment to the success of other couples, and have another

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couple support their own success as a couple entity. To support the sense of community, every 3 months or so all the local couples involved with a particular CCC circle get together for a half-day quarterly meeting to discuss what they are learning and to share their experiences. Although space is not sufficient to describe this or other programs in detail, CCC is an example of a method that may be used to foster the development of the fourth C of CPT while also supporting the first three Cs. Statements are made that assert commitment to the entity couple, and coaches foster teamwork and good communication. These groups of couples meet regularly to share experiences and celebrate their progress and be together as a community. The protocol for a program such as this may be set up with a therapist or couple by a trained CCC member in most any part of the country (contact www.couples coachingcouples.org).

Assessing Community Here are some of the questions that might be used in assessing community in couples. Most couples who present for therapy will not have a sense of community. If they do, it can represent a real strength for them when they are ready to use it. Basic Questions 1. How much time do you spend doing things with other couples? 2. Do you ever share with your friends about your relationship? 3. How do you meet other couples? Additional Questions 1. Do you feel close to your families? 2. Are you most comfortable when it is just the two of you doing something? 3. Were your parents divorced or unmarried?

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4. Do you ever go on vacations with other couples or extended family members? 5. Are most of your friends married or in serious relationships? 6. Do you have neighbors or friends over to visit at your house? Are they usually couples? 7. Would you rather live someplace else? Why?

Conclusion Supportive community programs such as those mentioned above serve to enhance the functioning of relationships during therapy as well as before or after couples are in need of treatment. Such programs may become an important focus of attention for therapists interested in making a long-term contribution to improving the relationships of their clients. The task of community is essential for the ongoing maintenance of couple. Without a connection with other groups and couples who support their commitment, a couple may be like a fish out of water. A community of support creates the context for the couple's commitment, which, in turn, supports the other tasks of couple. Thus, the Four Cs can be seen as a circle, with the last element linked to the first, where it all starts—that is, commitment to couple. When in doubt or trouble, then, the therapist can always "go back to one" (Kopp, 1977): "Learning to go back to one by returning to fundamentals of Work [sic], the therapist is helped to feel comfortable simply being in charge of the therapy" (p. 15).

Chapter

7 Obstacles Along the Way: Challenges for Clients and Therapists "In this transitional time we have the task of fitting the kinds of relationships we want into a society that may not only fail to support our vision but often actively oppose it." —Boston Women's Health Book Collective (1998, p. 191)

nce an approach or technique is learned, it is important for therapists to have a sense of the potential obstacles to putO ting that technique into practice so that roadblocks to its application in treatment can be anticipated and understood. A particularly difficult aspect of treating couples with any intervention is that therapists and clients alike are dealing not only with creating new patterns in the relationship but also overcoming old ones. An examination of what is presented in both popular culture and professional literature uncovers the existence of numerous barriers to the creation and maintenance of couple relationships—even within the field of psychotherapy. The unfortunate fact is that a large part of our society and of our profession has supported a paradigm that creates roadblocks to the maintenance of successful couple relationships. Thus, it is important that we examine here the obstacles to couple in our culture and the impact they have on both clients and therapists. 173

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Obstacles to Couple Power for Clients Although couple satisfaction remains elusive, people continue to pursue it through therapy and •whatever other advice or support they can find. Virtually everyone dreams of sustaining a loving, passionate, and successful relationship throughout their life. Object relations theorists suggest, in fact, that the "primary purpose of libidinal striving" is to be in relationship (Fairbairn, 1952) and that "the need to be in a relationship is not a choice— it is a genetic mandate" (Rutan & Rice, 2000, p. 514). So despite the high divorce rate and negative expectations about the longevity of relationships, most people still hope for and continue to try getting into relationship. In fact, 96% of all Americans reported in the 80s and 90s that a lasting, monogamous relationship was their major life goal (Popenoe, 1991; Yankelovich, 1981). It seems, then, that there would be an inherent desire to be part of a couple and that it would be upheld as a positive value in our society, one that would be automatically nurtured and supported. A careful look, however, reveals that our culture often thwarts and even undermines people's attempts to maintain a couple relationship. Although perhaps not obvious at first glance, society creates numerous barriers to the creation and maintenance of couples. These obstacles are prevalent in the world today and affect both the therapist and the couple in treatment. As psychotherapists trained to look at personal and interpersonal dynamics, we may tend to overlook the significant impact that the culture has on relationships. (By culture we mean the scope and context of human behavior patterns communicated from one generation to the next through language, biology, and technology.) Cultural barriers—in the media, in religion, in the workplace, and elsewhere—create numerous obstacles to what might otherwise be a natural tendency to create and maintain fulfilling relationships. In a thorough review of the literature on intimate intercultural relationships, Ting-Toomey (1994) pointed out that "human beings . . . are first and foremost cultural beings before they are beings in interpersonal relationships. Individuals first learn the implicit scripts of interpersonal development within the webs of their culture" (p. 47). Becoming aware of these cultural factors

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enables us as therapists to get a better sense of the big picture. From a broader perspective, we are better able to help clients understand and deal with cultural barriers in their lives. Cultural awareness gives both the therapist and the couple a larger context for accomplishing the basic tasks of couple, taking the responsibility off either partner and putting it somewhere outside the couple where they can confront it together. This process of externalizing the couple's problem enables it to be objectified as "a separate entity and thus external to the person who was or the relationship that was ascribed as the problem" (White, 1989, p. 5). Benefits of the practice of externalization include decreasing blame and the sense of failure, increasing cooperation to solve a problem, creating new possibilities for action and dialogue, and enabling a lighter approach to "deadly serious" problems (White & Epston, 1990). For instance, a couple that argues about not having enough time or resources may be helped to see the difficulty as foisted upon them by the culture's standards about success, which may relieve them of blaming each other for failing to resolve a problem. Couples usually come in for therapy blaming themselves or each other for their situation. Externalizing their problems through a cultural perspective gives them an outside enemy to stand against together. As mentioned above, people's stories about the probable course of their lives and relationships determine the paradigm from which their relationships unfold. To a great extent, these stories come from the society around them and are then internalized as idealized images about how they should behave and what their relationship should look like. Bringing cultural issues into the mix of therapy gives couples greater influence over the destiny of their relationship. Examination of the cultural narrative as it relates to couple's health and functioning highlights just how much the problems in a relationship may exist, not just in the mind of the individual or even in the mind of the couples (how they, together, see their relationship), but in the context of the overall culture. Externalizing problems in terms of the culture allows partners to choose consciously the paradigm or social prescriptions that will build the kind of couple they want to create (and reject those that would undermine it). Without such a cultural perspective, we are limited in our therapeutic

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effectiveness with couples and may even cause them harm. If ignored, cultural factors remain in the background, undermining progress in the overall treatment. If we as therapists do not address these issues, other elements of the culture such as television talk show hosts, commercials, or common websites may define for couple what is normal or expected in relationships. Identifying the many cultural barriers that couples confront daily is crucial to both the couple and the couples therapy. Some of the major obstacles confronting couples in our culture are presented below along with an explanation of how they are handled in the CPT model. Many practitioners and researchers have written about the various influences in the culture that directly or indirectly influence the perception and behavior of couples and therapists alike (Falicov, 1995; McGoldrick, 2003; McGoldrick & Carter, 1982; White, 1989). These factors may be divided into three general categories: (a) the paradigm of individualism, (b) idealized images, and (c) diversity in couples. As couples therapists, we cannot afford to ignore the many cultural obstacles to being couple. Understanding them is critical to successful therapy. In exploring these obstacles, the unknown enemy becomes known. We start to rethink the ways in which they prevent partners from leading satisfying, fulfilled lives as cocreating couples, and we learn how therapists may succeed in helping couples more effectively achieve the Four Cs of a successful relationship.

The Paradigm of Individualism A prevailing dimension of the culture, which we discussed above and which has received considerable attention over recent years, is the paradigm of individualism. For the classic utilitarian individualist, the only valid contract is one based on negotiation between individuals acting in their own self-interest. . .. No binding obligation and no wider social understanding justify a relationship ... and should it no longer meet their needs, it must end. (Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, & Tipton, 1985, p. 107)


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This paradigm of individualism in a "throw-away society" no doubt contributes to more couples choosing to divorce rather than stick it out, which is leading to what many are calling a divorce revolution. With so many spouses leaving for greener pastures, the divorce rate in the United States has quadrupled since 1965 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2004). Although some argue that the negative effects are exaggerated (Hetherington & Kelly, 2003), the "unexpected legacy" of so many divorces has been shown to have destructive effects on children and families over the past 25 years (Wallerstein et al., 2000). A deterioration of commitment and the ability to maintain the most basic and elemental social unit is clearly a challenge for children and for all relationships. Couples who come for treatment today are often torn between the conflicting forces of independence and the desire for a lasting relationship. Concern about losing autonomy has created an existential dilemma that has made both men and women reluctant to work on a long-term commitment they may see as potentially limiting. While wanting to immerse themselves in a romantic relationship, individuals "struggle with the dialectical tensions of autonomy and connection that face the relationship" (Ting-Toomey, 1994, p. 53). The increase in single-member households in the United States, both with and without children, may be a reflection of the predominance of the choice of personal independence over emotional attachments (Popenoe, 1991). This intense desire for independence—what has been called "individualism run amok" (Aldous, 1987), "the psychology of entitlement" (Spence & Izard, 1985), "the triumph of the individual" (Powers, 2000), and "the narcissism of our time" (Lasch, 1979)— contributes to the barriers to lasting relationships that we must deal with as therapists in modern society. In many ways, the independent type of couple described in chapter 2 (this volume) may be seen as composed of two individuals operating from the paradigm of individualism with separate agendas. A therapist's task is to generate a common goal that might be supported by the entity of couple. Independent couples often seem to bond together in response to the demands of the outside world. Attempts to be successful in careers, for instance, give the couple something to work for, but do not necessarily

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require that they develop intimacy or cooperation together. Their energies tend to be directed outside of the couple, rather than within it. The reluctance to generate an intimate partnership may be a function of fears that it cannot be accomplished. The partners might also believe they are unlovable for who they are and must, therefore, be judged by what they do. To be loved, they must convince their partner of their productivity, measured in an individualistic Western culture by making money or gaining fame— or just doing a great deal of work. Their fears may also be manifested as a fear of rejection or abandonment, fear of losing one's individual identity, fear of being overwhelmed by another's needs, fear of being responsible for taking care of someone else, and fear of the violation of one's personal space. Some of these fears may arise from the belief that many people have of being in relationship—that is, that it leads to merging with one's partner. Developing better relationships may not be contingent upon removing these fears; rather, the therapist can teach couples how to accept and use them as guides to resolving personal issues and creating relatedness. Fears of intimacy are inherent in all relationships, but they may be especially powerful in the establishment and maintenance of a couple, where all the aspects of intimacy (sexual, emotional, social, etc.) come together on an ongoing basis. Understanding the Four Cs may be helpful to these couples. The realization that being committed and cooperating can make them feel safe from abandonment may free independent types from the fears of losing themselves and their role in their relationship. The therapist may help the independent couple focus on a sense of togetherness and couple that allows the partners to feel both their own independence and a real sense of intimacy and sharing together. They may then be able to cooperate by supporting each other's activities and common purpose, rather than counting on their own individual accomplishments to give them a sense of self-worth. For instance, when Reese and April first got married, April had heavy debt to pay off and had been harassed by a number of collection agencies. She was very ashamed of her predicament


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and rarely spoke about it to Reese, fearing he would be critical of her or leave her. She also wanted to feel like she could carry her own weight financially. In therapy, they both began to see that if they cooperated in taking on paying off her indebtedness and saw this task as supporting their couple and their desire to be together and have fun, they would both feel better about it. The paradigm of individualism not only exists within individuals; it also pervades the institutions that are part of the everyday life in which people live and work. Institutionalized factors undermining couples and marriage in society include the legal system and the workplace. The Legal System The same legal system that legitimizes marriage also creates many barriers to it by making it relatively easy to get a divorce. Within the prevailing paradigm of individualism was the advent of no-fault divorce in the 1970s, allowing the dissolution of a marriage to be totally an individual decision. A few states have recently added the option of covenant marriage, which creates a more binding marriage contract based on traditional faultgrounds for divorce. The legal system in general does not provide many alternatives to divorce or encouragements for staying together as a couple. Popenoe (1991) pointed out that as "laws regulating marriage and divorce have become increasingly more lax . . . divorce feeds upon itself. With more divorce, the more 'normal' it becomes, with fewer negative sanctions to oppose it and more potential partners available" (p. 52). There has indeed been a lessening of the stigma against divorce and of living together without marriage. The U.S. government, in particular, has maintained what amounts to a marriage penalty in the income tax that has only recently been modified so as not to economically penalize the majority of married couples. There has also been much criticism of welfare laws in the U.S., which indirectly work against couples, as it is available only to single parents. Members of a couple who seek legal advice regarding separation or divorce are often counseled by their attorneys not to talk

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directly to their spouse about economic or other matters. This creates barriers to possible communication between the partners that might have been helpful in working things out between them. (The exception to this practice has been the recent development of mediation and collaborative law.) A similar barrier to working as a couple exists in the criminal justice system around dealing with cases of domestic violence. The system is organized around dealing with the offender, not the couple, and support is aimed primarily at abused women, not the dysfunctional relationship. This ignores the occurrence of female violence and also the fact that most victims return to their partners even after multiple arrests. Contrary to the prevailing attitude that "it's all his fault," some courts and domestic violence counselors have begun to start getting at the root of the problem by asking questions about the couple's relationship: "What support systems and friends do they have?" "Are they part of a spiritual community?" These kinds of questions are leading to treatment that transforms abusive relationships rather than just punishes offenders. Sonia had been in individual therapy to deal with her husband's abusive behavior and threats about separation after 10 years of marriage and two children. She was advised by her attorney to take all of her money out of their joint account, which she did immediately. This action increased suspicion and anger on both their parts. She was also given legal advice not to engage in sexual relations with her husband so as to establish a boundary of legal separation. This closed off more possibilities of getting together in an intimate way with her husband, which might have encouraged them to reconcile. Both partners' use of attorneys reduced the flexibility they had to explore other ways of resolving issues in their relationship. With the therapist's help, they began to look at their couple as an entity and to work as a team on their differences. When they stopped communicating through their lawyers and began to cooperate, they got back together and were able to work out some new solutions to their problems. There are certainly times when the use of lawyers is wise and necessary, but all parties need to be aware that the use of the legal system may create a formidable barrier to the survival and potential of their couple.


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Workplace and Economic Variables Research in social psychology, sociology, economics, and family stress theory all show that family well-being, regardless of social class, is inextricably linked to workplace experiences and conditions such as job loss and economic sufficiency (Boss & Sheppard, 1988). With more and more women working, dual-career couples are more the rule than the exception these days. Conflicts between job pressures and personal commitments are likely to affect everyone at one time or another. For couples in which one member works outside the home and the other does not, such conflicts often arise; even when two people have similar jobs or work together, work may take its toll on the couple. Perhaps the most damaging obstacle to couples created by the individualistic workplace is an exaggeration of the work ethic: Produce and achieve at all costs. This expectation can be isolating, increasing feelings of competitiveness between the partners and creating alienation rather than cooperation and well-being within the couple. When partners feel that their primary obligation is to their work over their couple, it takes a heavy toll on the relationship. Isolation was less of a problem when couples worked hard together in family businesses. With many couples not even working on the same schedule, it is increasingly difficult to stay together. Loyalty to the job may become a priority over loyalty to the family; attraction to the workplace may supersede attraction to one's spouse. A Special Report on the Disintegration of the Family (Smith, 2001) pointed out that everyone has a limited bonding capacity, and if a worker's bonds to coworkers or clients, developed out of regular faceto-face cooperation, use up most of that capacity, then his or her bonds to other members of his or her family—both spouse and children—will be weaker as a consequence, (pp. 13-14) If interactions at work allow for greater intimacy than do interactions at home, the couple will suffer. The effects of this kind of work ethic are contrary to what we might call a couple ethic,

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which fosters shared experience and communication and offers room for career fulfillment without sacrificing the couple. As therapists often discover in working with couples, money is one of the major issues of conflict between partners, often more difficult to talk about than sex. Research consistently shows that economic distress correlates significantly with increased family tensions and instability (Voydanoff, 1990). It is important to note that a couple's perceived economic well-being rather than actual income is the primary factor related to several levels of family satisfaction (Fox & Chancey, 1998, p. 741). These kind of perceptual barriers are easily addressed within the CPT model. Brenda and Dan, for example, both previously married, experienced a great deal of stress just before their wedding because Dan was unemployed. Brenda was working hard to set up her own business and was angry that Dan wasn't doing more to "take care of her" and their financial situation. When their therapist helped them change their perception from blame and guilt to the possibility of taking on her business as a couple, they began to work together and felt much more optimistic about their economic and couple well-being. With an increase in dual-career relationships, additional stress occurs when one partner moves or changes jobs. Many corporate jobs do not involve placement of the working spouse of the corporate employee. This means that there is a greater likelihood that the spouse of the employee may not find an ideal job and suffer some dissatisfaction, putting more pressure on the relationship. The reluctance of businesses to hire both members of a couple has made this situation even more difficult. In some cases, the partner may refuse to move, resulting in the dissolution of the relationship or the need to carry on a stressful long-distance partnership. It has usually been the wife who felt compelled to give up her position to accommodate the career of her husband. Although women may be less likely now to feel that they have to accommodate, the issue is often still a challenging one to deal with in therapy for both partners. Physical exhaustion and sleep deprivation are also frequent stressors for working couples. When one or both people are tired from a long workday, little energy may be left for quality time


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together, let alone for therapy. Maintaining intimacy in a relationship may not seem as pressing a need as meeting a deadline or recovering from an intense workweek (Reynolds & Norman, 1988). One obvious casualty of work-related fatigue is physical intimacy or a satisfying sex life. Fatigue itself may actually affect the ability to perform sexually and be a cause of sexual dysfunction. Many couples may just be too tired or too busy to have time for any kind of intimate communication, verbal or physical. "There isn't time," "I don't have the energy," "It's just not something I think about": Therapists hear all of these statements regularly. To counter these messages, therapists may encourage couples to commit to setting up a brief time each day to be together. They may use this time to communicate about things that are important to them, or just relax together—which may eventually lead to more physical intimacy as well. Therapists may suggest that couples begin this time together by stating their proclamations, and that this time not be used to discuss logistics or household chores. This is to be a time for their couple just to be couple. A common scenario in therapy is the dual-career couple who finds it increasingly difficult to find time for sex with each other. When one is interested in being intimate, the other often is not, which results in constant anger and frustration between them. Each feels unappreciated by the other for the job he or she is doing and for the income it generates for both of them. The combination of unrequited desire and frustration may eventually give way to lack of attraction or interest. This situation is, unfortunately, prevalent among most couples. An estimated 40% to 50% of men and women in this country report sexual apathy, with working couples much more likely to experience this lack of desire (Davidowitz, 1992). Highly motivated career-oriented individuals are often uncertain where to place love and romance on their priority list. Again, individualism encourages the view that career achievement is more important than personal fulfillment in an intimate relationship. Assertive, high-performance people may find it especially hard to switch gears and become passionate, compassionate, nurturing, and loving when they arrive home at night. "While readily sympathizing with each

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others' stresses, they still may find it difficult to switch from being hard-driving and hard-nosed all day to being tender and compassionate lovers at night" (Sarnoff & Sarnoff, 1989, p. 54). Helping the couple redirect their focus to the couple entity in simple ways is particularly important for these kinds of overworked couples. They may be encouraged to build couple into their regular daily routine. Sharing their dreams while they get up in the morning and get dressed, for example, is a quick but very intimate and fun way of sharing (Koch-Sheras & Sheras, 1998). The couple proclamation is very useful for such couples. Having the partners say their proclamation together when they arrive home in the evening makes a great difference in their moods. For one thing, at least a short time is dedicated for them to meet and greet each other when first coming back together at the end of the workday. Adding some nonverbal gestures such as a hug, kiss, or wink when they pass each other is also helpful. Rena and Rolf, both physicians with active practices and a lively and energetic young son, Jason, would come home and immediately tend to tasks that needed to be accomplished: making dinner, spending time with Jason, paying urgent bills, and the like. They felt that they just didn't have any time for their couple; there was just too much to do. They wanted to be together but felt far apart. At the suggestion of their therapist, they began to say their proclamation face-to-face the minute they both returned home, sometimes accompanied with a hug or a 10-second kiss. Almost immediately they began to look forward to their daily reunions, and, saying their proclamation together became special and enlivening for them without being time consuming.

Idealized Images Everywhere we look in our culture we are confronted with idealized, romanticized images of the perfect woman, man, or relationship. These images permeate educational systems and the media, leading to unrealistic or unachievable expectations of partners and nearly insurmountable pressures on couples in a variety of ways. These preconceived notions make it more difficult for partners to be flexible and open in therapy to possibilities


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for themselves and their couple. Below we present some of the areas in Western culture where these idealized images appear. It is our job as therapists to help clients recognize these constraints on their relationships. Education In addition to the home, the school is a primary environment where children learn how to relate intimately to one another. Most of this learning is done informally, however, because little formal education is available to counteract gender stereotypes or to provide information about creating and maintaining a healthy relationship. Other than the cursory treatment of sex and relationships in some family life education courses and the occasional use of mediation for crisis management, few programs in the schools teach relationship building or conflict resolution. Although controversial, when relationship skills are taught, most of the emphasis has been on sexuality, with a focus on birth control and sexually transmitted diseases. Marriage is generally presented as the end romantic point of a successful relationship, with the partners living happily ever after, rather than as the beginning of a complicated process of negotiation and cooperation. This kind of teaching sets up unrealistic expectations that lead to problems later on, as "the degree of mutual disappointment will usually match the degree of idealization of the relationship during courtship" (McGoldrick, 1999, p. 238). It is important that the couples therapist point out these damaging expectations when they are present and help the couple create realistic but inspiring visions. Aside from formal schooling, some people may also learn about marriage from religious training in Sunday school or as part of the adult education or ritual practice of their religion. This kind of education is limited, however, as it is often based on moralistic religious principles or idealized expectations that may present marriage in terms of commitment to a higher power or ethic—a commitment that may appear more as an obligation than a choice. The level of school violence reveals the early consequences of relationship skills not being taught more widely to children.

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Students ridicule and bully each other, forming cliques based on superficiality and discrimination as a way of interacting without being taught to respect each other (Sheras, 2002). These cliques may lead to drug use, depression, poor body image, underachievement, and anger that may even turn violent. Lack of education and support for learning how to relate compassionately and respectfully with others during the school years has dire consequences for future relationships. The Media It seems to be through the media, not the education system, that people in our culture are most informed, and therefore influenced, about what a relationship should or could be. Images of relationships are vividly portrayed in contemporary culture through radio, television, music, film, and print media. These images may be even more powerful than the model of couple learned while growing up in one's own family. Thus, it is important that, in addition to family history, therapists pay attention to the impact of the media on couple relationships. Otherwise, we may miss significant information that creates barriers to the success of couple relationships. A review of irrational beliefs about relationships and sexuality shows, in fact, that "cultural myths, marketed by Madison Avenue and other media-linked purveyors of popular beliefs, play a major role in socializing people into specific irrationalities regarding relationships" (McCormick & Jordan, 1988, p. 42). Those irrational beliefs have been shown to relate negatively to measures of marital adjustment, marital stress, and expectations about the outcome of therapy (Ellis, 1962; Epstein & Eidelson, 1981). One of the primary purveyors of unrealistic beliefs about relationships is the popular print media—that is, self-help books, magazine articles, and newspaper columns about couples that generally promise quick and easy solutions. Couples and therapists seeking information about creating successful relationships have primarily found writings that begin with the premise that a relationship must be corrected or fixed in some way to meet some preconceived ideal model. These materials usually proceed to offer strategies for success through communication skills.


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These kinds of books have been shown to have negative effects, such as increased expectations about sexual perfectionism for oneself and one's relationship (Shapiro & Kroeger, 1991). The indictment that Lederer and Jackson (1968) made of such print media years ago is still pertinent today: "Almost all of these are trash. They are of no more value to individuals seeking answers than an [sic] Ouija board would be. It tells the individual what to do, but neglects the central issue in every marriage—the relationship" (p. 17). Research on the effects of the popular media has shown that the most significant predictor of unrealistic sexual expectations in contemporary Western society comes from listening to rock music and watching rock videos characterized by extreme levels of eroticism. As Shapiro and Kroeger (1991) explained, These songs and their accompanying videos are riddled with eroticized images of perfect looking people performing provocatively, perhaps stimulating the desire for sex in reality to live up to the fantasy quality of the media or confirming the belief that sex should be automatically perfect, (p. 233)

On the basis of what they see portrayed in the media, many couples come to think that just bringing more excitement into their sexual relationship will solve the problems in their marriage. Now with the advent of new sexually stimulating drugs to heighten arousal and performance, many couples have begun to expect and look for the kind of sexual excitement they see in the movies. This sometimes leads to infidelity or sexual affairs, often creating more dissatisfaction or even divorce. In addition, although the media tend to focus on an idealized image of sex, they omit some of the other positive qualities of relatedness in couples, providing very few models that portray the joy of daily life in a relationship. Day-to-day life is often portrayed as boring, unfulfilling, mundane, and therefore undesirable. This portrayal may encourage an addiction to excitement rather than a more calm or grounded form of relationship. Couples learn to focus on what is missing from a perfect relationship, rather than on what it is possible to create, both sexually and in other areas of their relationship.

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Leslie and Bob have been married for 25 years. Leslie has been resentful for all that time, because she has never been able to have an orgasm during intercourse. Even though Bob stayed erect for 3 to 10 minutes before ejaculation, she considered him to be a premature ejaculator. They both felt hopeless and abnormal. She would blame him, and he would feel so guilty that they stopped having sex altogether. With the help of the therapist, they saw that having enjoyable sex could be the project of their couple, not the individuals. This reduced the anger and guilt and allowed them to begin new and interesting sexual explorations. By repeatedly stating their commitment to couple, he became less afraid and she less hostile. Television often contributes to romantic illusion and unrealistic expectations by presenting either overly idealized couples unrelated to real family situations or portraying couples as striving to achieve a better quality of relationship but falling short. Rarely do we see behaviors of acceptance, warmth, empathy, and emotional intimacy portrayed as sufficient cause for happiness. Rather, particularly in soap operas and reality shows, lack of attachment is encouraged and even romanticized, as in one series that included scenes of spouses set up to cheat on each other. Moreover, when couples appear on talk shows together they are often encouraged to express "pathological levels of anger . . . [and] are treated as though their rages were completely normal and acceptable" (Enright, 2001, p. 13). The general premise of most sitcoms and television dramas, in the Father Knows Best style, is finding something wrong with the perfect family, and then one spouse fixing it. The television-episode format gives the impression that problems are always resolved in a timely manner—that is, conveniently within a 30- or 60-minute show (including commercials). The proliferation of new channels now further encourages the notion that if you don't like what you see, just switch to another channel—or relationship. Programs in which couple struggles are presented as a necessary part of human existence are rare but when broadcast have often been quite popular. Rather than giving a quick fix through a titillating scenario, such shows leave the viewer with more intriguing questions at the end than at the beginning, such as "What kind


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of commitment and cooperation is necessary to sustain a relationship?" In the area of news coverage, the media seem to value career and financial success far more than the promotion of family values. Rarely do television news accounts focus on family successes, effective couples, or group problem solving. Instead, the human-interest focus is on celebrity divorces, child custody battles, domestic violence, and what is otherwise wrong with the social fabric. Consistent with the ethos of individualism, straight news accounts focus on highlighting personal successes and failures more than on couple or team triumphs. Even the social pages of our major newspapers usually downplay the couple in favor of the beautiful bride, acknowledging briefly that a groom actually exists, too. Only relatively recently have newspapers started reporting and picturing both the bride and groom as a couple. Nowhere is the influence of the media in our culture more evident than with the romantic type of couple discussed earlier. "Tellingly, interviews with abused wives are often peppered with the language of perfection associated with endless love" so characteristic of romance novels and movies (Kingston, 2004, p. 164). When we deal with this type of couple in therapy, it is important to point out to them that the difficulty is not about the lack of intensity of their feelings. It is about not broadening their relationship to include areas beyond their idealized notions of physical attraction. It is common to see couples break up after 18 months to 2 years as a result of a loss of infatuation, because their partner seems wrong for them and they simply do not know what else is involved in sustaining a relationship. To move them toward attaining couple power, the therapist might help them to generate a joint vision of bringing romance into other activities in their lives. Questions to explore with them include the following: "How can parents make more time for sex and going out together?" "How can they arrange time and financial planning to buy a house or take a vacation in a romantic place?" Answering such questions creates the opportunity for expanding their horizons as a couple without sacrificing physical intimacy.

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Jack and Betty have been together for 7 years. During that time, Jack felt that Betty needed to dress and look a particular way before and during sexual relations. He developed this image from looking at magazines and sexually explicit videos. Betty was uncomfortable with how he wanted her to dress. Because of this discomfort, she no longer wanted to have sex with him at all. In working with a therapist, they were able to see that his images of sexuality were not really his own, but those manufactured by the media. With the common goal of fun and enjoyable sex without fear of disappointing each other, they found other ways they could become intimate and aroused.

Gender Stereotypes As with the ethos of individualism, a restricted context for accomplishing the Four Cs is created in our culture by gender stereotyping, a subject of much study in recent years (Bern, 1993; Denmark, Shaw, & Ciali, 1985; Eckes & Trautner, 2000; Tannen, 1990; Wolf, 1997). "A woman's place is in the home" and "Boys will be boys" are examples of "discourses and social practices . . . organized around the lens of ... gender polarization" (Bern, 1993, p. 143). One of the areas in which gender role limitations are often problematic is in communicating about sex. Certain sexual behaviors are considered culturally appropriate or ideal for women and others for men—what has come to be called the double standard. Men can be aggressive and play around sexually, and it often is accepted; if women do the same, they are often considered promiscuous. This double standard may cause difficulty for the traditionally raised woman with idealized gender expectations, particularly if she is unassertive and marries a rather nonassertive man. For example, a young couple in a couples therapy group, Linda and Terry, married for 4 years, were having sexual relations very infrequently, partly because of the wife's shyness and discomfort with sex. Terry was reluctant to initiate sex anymore for fear of being rejected by Linda and upsetting her. With support and good-natured feedback from the therapist and other couples in


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the group, they began to experiment with new approaches to their sex life. T: I wonder if there is anything that you other couples might contribute here to help Linda and Terry? Terry: We sure could use some ideas. Linda just doesn't seem to get turned on much any more. Other Group Member: Maybe a massage or a shower together? Terry: I am not so sure I am a good massager. I do like to wash Linda's hair, though. T: Maybe you could start there, and something else might happen. Other Group Member: Maybe you could keep track of the times you do intimate physical stuff together.

Linda, a teacher, then came up with the idea of putting smiley faces on a calendar to mark the occurrence of their sexual escapades. They reported that they began to have sex more often. A light-hearted attitude emerged, as other group members put smiley faces on Linda and Terry's chairs before the next group meeting. Over time, the number of these marks on the couple's home calendar increased, as did their sexual liberation. With increased sexual freedom for both genders, many women have begun initiating sex more often. This has created more opportunity but also more performance anxiety for many of them. This anxiety and pressure may ironically have been compounded by the publication of Masters and Johnson's Human Sexual Response (1966), which reported women to be capable of multiple orgasms. Now, women as well as men may feel inadequate if they are not meeting the ideal of continuously sexually fulfilling both their own and their partner's sexual needs. In addition, in an effort to be egalitarian, some men may feel they should not be too aggressive sexually with their partners, which inhibits their spontaneity. In addition, the advent of the sexual revolution in the 60s led to a kind of casual sex that has become an obstacle to long-term committed relationships:

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Men and women now pursue sexual pleasure as an end in itself, unmediated even by the conventional trappings of romance. ... Sex valued purely for its own sake loses all reference to the future and brings no hope of permanent relationships. (Lasch, 1979, p. 191)

Though casual sex is less popular now, perhaps, because of the threat of AIDS, both men and women often engage in it rather than pursuing committed relationships. This often leads to a kind of "nonbonding commitment" or "cool sex" that "makes a virtue of emotional disengagement" (Lasch, 1979, p. 200). Sometimes the strict roles each member of a couple plays can inhibit the spontaneity and creativity that attracted them to each other in the first place. This dilemma is addressed in the "Changing Places" exercise (see chap. 5, this volume). The partners may feel they cannot be themselves anymore; instead, they act out rigid or idealized sexual roles through "the lens of gender polarization" (Bern, 1993) as though they have no choice in the matter. As cited in The Meaning of Wife, (Kingston, 2004) studies show that even young women who work outside the home still expect their husbands to be the primary breadwinners. As Lederer and Jackson (1968) pointed out, "with little help from any social quarter, men and women are fighting lonely battles to find their place in the sun" (p. 35). The crucial choice they describe that couples have about their respective roles in marriage and the dire consequences of not exercising them is still relevant today: Despite the habits and cumulative forces of society, the man and woman can determine for themselves what role each will have in marriage. When they are unable to do this, then the marriage either will fail, or will be merely a numb, routine affair. Trouble is caused not by the vast differences (which don't exist), but by the inability to choose and activate the desirable or necessary role. (p. 67)

Interestingly enough, research shows that same-sex couples (particularly lesbians) exhibit greater nonconformity to tra-


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ditional-role norms and appear to have more egalitarian and androgynous relationships than do heterosexual couples (Blumstein & Schwartz, 1983). It has been suggested that this androgyny may be a function of "not having been socialized since birth to enact a particular gender role division in a lesbian or gay male relationship, and not facing social pressure from others to fulfill preordained roles" (Green, Bettinger, & Zacks, 1996, p. 216). Many times couples caught in gender role stereotypes complain that they have poor communication. What this likely means is that they have not been able to articulate their concerns to their partner. They believe it to be a failure of communication, when it is more likely a failure to understand the power of the behavioral and cultural patterns that have locked them into their rigid couple pattern. Gender stereotypes and family expectations conspire against effective adaptation and change. First, the therapist must help the partners see the hidden or unspoken expectations they have of each other and then direct them to explore more constructive or innovative possibilities together: "I know you expect your spouse to act that way, but how would you like her to act? How would you like him to treat you?" Effective therapy when working with such role-defined couples includes helping them understand the notion of couple as an entity and exploring the history of the agreements they made earlier on. The therapist should encourage them to talk about how the needs met by those earlier promises might be met now. Given the current problems in their relationship, they need to explore the changes in their lives and their commitment to remain together as a couple. In many cases, a long time has gone by without their feelings coming to light. Sometimes the person who has been the supportive partner would be satisfied with acknowledgment for what he or she has been doing for so long. In some cases, however, a restructuring of the roles or more freedom from current roles might be required. The goal of the therapist in this case is not to broker a settlement. Instead, it is necessary to help both partners examine the structure they have created and eventually design a new one that better meets their needs as a couple entity.

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Feminism The pressure to create more egalitarian and flexible gender roles, although productive, has created some of its own obstacles. The heightened expectations of women for both themselves and their partners generated by the advent of feminism has led to an ideal of "superwoman" trying to do and have it all. The contemporary American woman often thinks she must be physically fit, mentally brilliant, a great lover, homemaker and parent, and champion bread winner. On top of this, she feels she has to juggle all of these activities and responsibilities with grace and ease. Advertising has created the image of the liberated woman as the well-groomed, efficient executive who comes home to take care of her children and husband and dogs, and then cooks a gourmet dinner—still smiling, of course! Research has shown, in fact, that the wives of dual-career couples do 75% of the housework (Hochschild, 2003). The disorder stemming from these expectations has been identified as the superwoman syndrome, "a range of physical, psychological, and interpersonal stress symptoms experienced by a woman as she attempts to perform perfectly such multiple and conflicting roles as worker or career volunteer, wife, mother, and homemaker" (Shaevitz, 1984, p. 15). When a woman is unable to live up to these expectations, one or both members of the couple may experience intense disappointment, anger, or guilt. This may lead to as much deterioration of the relationship as that caused by following traditional gender roles. Evidence of these responses can be seen in the many female clients who seek therapy either to find out why they cannot live up to their ideal of success or to get help in coping with all the pressures on their couple caused by their multiple roles. It has been demonstrated that it is the women's husbands, particularly traditional men, who have been most disturbed by their spouse's juggling (Crosby, 1991). It seems that challenging traditional gender roles and idealized images, even when successfully done, is unsettling and even frightening to many men, creating yet another potential barrier to the couple that needs to be addressed in therapy.


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Lucy, a young law student, felt that she needed to be home when her husband Lyle came back from his job as a stockbroker. She felt that she needed to have the dinner ready, take a shower, and look relaxed for him. She was also working hard to make law review, which necessitated late-night meetings with a study group in town. Being a superwoman, however, she revealed in couples therapy that she did not want to share her struggles with time and fatigue with Lyle, fearing that he would think her to be inadequate. It was only then, after sharing her fear that she was willing to take the therapist's suggestion to ask Lyle for support and work together as a team. Children The addition of children to a relationship can influence most of the other obstacles we have already discussed. Gender roles, for example, are tied in part to traditional ideas about being Mom and Dad. The pressures of career are even more intense when a child is waiting at home, and most business organizations do not have policies or procedures that support their employees as couples let alone as parents. Workplaces that offer support such as leave for the care of sick children or child-care resources are few and far between. Although exciting and enriching, the responsibilities of parenthood clearly can be daunting to a couple. Although children do not cause marital dissatisfaction or dysfunction, couples tend to become more disillusioned with their marriages after children are added to their lives. The stresses of family life seem to make the periods before children and after they are grown the more satisfying periods of marriage. Childfree marriages are often characterized by more intense marital interaction, increased cooperation, and more egalitarian gender roles (Hoffman & Levant, 1985). Part of the problem that casts children as a barrier to a satisfying couple relationship may be the romanticized notion people have of the transitions to both marriage and parenthood, wanting to see only the joy and ignore the pressures. This often makes it difficult for parents to admit even to their therapist that they are frustrated with their children or their partner. One young

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troubled couple, Gary and Tanya, with their first child less than a year old, went several sessions without ever talking about their child, let alone their difficulties and disagreement in caring for him. Guiding them to create a new proclamation that focused on working together as a team ("We work together") helped Gary and Tanya to be better parents. Another contributor to obstacles regarding children is the tendency in the past 2 decades for parents to give higher priority to their child than to their couple. "This is the new American ideal ... based on the nefarious notion that the more attention you pay, the more involved you are with, the more you do for your child, the better a parent you are" (Rosemond, 2004). Certainly, a child needs to feel safe and loved by the parents, but couples in Western society, it seems, have gone overboard, which often results in less satisfied couple relationships and more self-centered demanding children with no model for taking care of oneself or a marriage. Many dual-career couples express sadness and guilt at being away from their children because of work commitments, feeling the need and pressure to be with them at all other times to compensate for time away, even at the expense of their own needs or intimate time as couple. In fact, their couple usually comes last, after time for oneself, the home, and extended family. Partners trapped in acting according to such idealized images of caretakers or mother and father need to be encouraged by the therapist to relate to each other more as husband and wife. (Homework to go on a date or the like is quite helpful in this area.) Children require immense time and energy that, like a career, often leave parents without the time or energy to devote to their couple. "There are only so many hours in a day," said one mother to the therapist. "My husband and I, together, get whatever's left over. Usually, that's not much." Marriage and parenthood compete for personal resources. Physical and emotional energy and money must now be distributed between the needs of new family members and the preexisting needs of the couple. Given the feelings of attachment, responsibility, and urgency that children engender in their parents, often little time and energy are left for the couple itself. With less time to communicate and more people to blend into the communication they do have, the


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family dynamic invariably alters the couple dynamic. Logistical challenges, such as babysitting or caring for a sick child, often lead to resentment and a lack of communication. If speaking loudly will wake the baby, parents might choose not to speak at all. Encouraging couples to take time to say their proclamation and acknowledge each other frequently is an important intervention in these cases. Marcia and Eric, a young couple with three small children, were experiencing intense pressures around handling a newborn in the household. They needed to make more money, so Marcia had to take on a new job that required her working at night. They agreed that Eric would stay home with the children and work part-time during the hours that Marcia was not at her job. As a result of their schedule, they were both constantly exhausted and barely saw each other, let alone other couples or friends. Marcia began to criticize Eric for not bringing in more money and for his style of parenting. Neither of them felt they had time or energy to take care of their own personal needs. Using the CPT model, the therapist helped them see the possibility of cooperating to create a way for Marcia to work only on weekends. This would allow Eric to work more during the week and give Marcia more time to be with the children as she had requested. They could then be more flexible in their roles (doing more than just one thing each) and could be more relaxed at home. The therapist gave them homework to acknowledge each other every day for what they were contributing to the family. This exercise reduced their resentment and criticism of each other. With reduced negative interactions, they were motivated to spend more time together when they could, instead of avoiding each other. They were encouraged to attend a biweekly couples group, which they did regularly and which gave them a sense of community support and provided them with new ideas of how to manage their busy life together. Children can also create an invasion of privacy, perhaps most notably when it comes to the sexual relationship. A fear of children walking in on an intimate moment, whether sexual or conversational, is often a cause of some concern. With more people in the house, there is less opportunity to be spontaneous or spend quality time together as a couple. "I want to spend time with

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my wife," one client told us. "But by the time we get home from work, the kids want our attention, and to be honest, it's hard not to feel like a part of a crowd. I think we're both guilty of letting the presence of our kids get in the way of having any time together as a couple." Having this couple say their proclamation when they got home helped them create a special space of intimate connection that helped take them through the rest of the evening with a more positive and hopeful attitude. With the added sense of responsibility that comes with having children, couples often tend to move toward more role-defined or "safe" models of parenting, which reduce their flexibility and creativity. Whether the result of biology or behavior learned at her own mother's knee, a woman, especially, may feel pulled toward a traditional nurturing role, often sacrificing her own needs and the needs of the couple for the needs of her child. When one role in the couple changes, the other role is invariably affected. The close bond between mother and baby, for instance, might cause the father to feel jealous, excluded, or alienated from his new family. This feeling of exclusion can start even before the baby is born. Bill and Judy, married for 3 years, came to therapy when they were expecting their first child. Judy told Bill that she did not want him in the delivery room, because she was embarrassed at how she would look, and, besides, her mother never did that. He was disappointed and angry until the therapist helped both of them get clear about their couple priorities, and they worked it out to be together in the delivery room. Parents sometimes even compete for their children's affection, deflecting the underlying issue of finding time and energy to have affection within the couple. As children enter various developmental stages, there are new surprises to contend with. This is particularly true when a child reaches adolescence, a time when parents often feel inadequate, vulnerable, and incompetent. Aldous (1987) argued that the stresses of adolescence "feed back on husband and wife relationships making them less pleasant." Sheras, Abidin, and Konold (1998) demonstrated that relationship difficulties also impact how stressful parenting a teenager can be. In short, the roles of parent and spouse often seem incompatible.


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Compatibility Another problem that makes it difficult for couples to achieve a positive relationship is perceived incompatibility. Both couples and therapists usually expect that two people who have different values, different personalities, and different personal histories are incompatible. The assumptions learned from the culture are that similarity breeds support. Even in couples therapy groups, couples are often surprised that they connect so easily with other couples that seem so different from them in age, background, or experience. As couples strive for similarity and compatibility between themselves, and with other couples as well, they often commit themselves to boredom and predictability—a real barrier to intimacy and ongoing couple satisfaction. Idealized concepts of compatibility with others develop early in life. People observe models, such as parents or popular idols, and train themselves to find these compatible characteristics in those with whom they relate. They often radically narrow the field of those they see as potential partners, which makes their attempts to be in relationships even more difficult. (Sometimes in rebellion against cultural values, adolescents or young adults choose the opposite of these traditional models, an alternative just as narrow and limiting as trying to re-create the past.) It may be, in fact, that couples often work together better as a team and learn more from others who are different than themselves— if they commit themselves to listen. Teaching them dedicated listening and speaking within the context of commitment helps them overcome perceived incompatibilities and fosters intimacy.

Diversity in Couples Working with any couple that is outside the mainstream traditional male-female model of couple involves additional obstacles to accomplishing the Four Cs. In addition to all the other cultural factors mentioned above, such couples may have to deal with prejudice, discrimination, or alienation from their families or the culture at large. This may create added difficulties in therapy in

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generating an initial commitment as couple and also in creating a community of support for the relationship. Gay and Lesbian Couples Gay and lesbian couples, in particular, often have a harder time attaining acceptance and support from a larger community of friends or family. Part of the problem, depending on geographical location, is just a matter of numbers. Although representing a substantial proportion of the population, gay men and women still operate as a significant minority: About 4% of women and 5% of men report that they have had a same-gender partner since they were 18 years old—although these figures undoubtedly represent an underreporting of actual experiences "given the high degree of stigma attached to homosexuality in society" (Michaels, 1996, p. 62). Although the social stigma may be decreasing, gays and lesbians still experience many forms of discrimination in our culture that make it difficult to maintain a couple. Homophobia may take the form of anything from being ignored up to legal or religious sanctions and outright violence. "Being barred from hospital rooms and funerals, losing the right to participate in care, losing custody of a child, and being thrown out of a home after the death of a same-sex partner are all harsh realities known to lesbians and gay men" (Cabaj & Purcell, 1998, p. xiii). An additional difficulty in maintaining couple may be the loss of guidance from parents and other family members who may find it difficult to provide either modeling or support for their child's nontraditional couple. Some parents may continue to stay alienated from the gay couple over the course of a long-term relationship, depriving the partners of the structure of ongoing family connection. "When a couple's relationship is not recognized, [same-sex] partners suffer from the added stresses of secrecy and isolation that increase their dependence on the relationship, but with less guidance and fewer models for their behavior" (Patterson & Schwartz, 1994, p. 5). Although some states now allow gay marriages or civil unions to be recognized, same-sex couples usually do not have the benefit of the structure and norms provided by the institution of


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marriage that heterosexual couples have. This lack of an institutionalized relationship makes it difficult for them to know how to define their commitment and their couple to others—or even to themselves. Depending on where they live or how comfortable they feel about their sexual identity, gay couples will have varying opportunities for creating a relationship or support for maintaining it. A lesbian couple called a therapist they knew who lived in another city to ask for help with their relationship of 2 years, because they said that they had no one—either friends or mental health professionals—they felt they could talk to in their own hometown about their gay relationship. A few phone consultations with the therapist helped them get back on track. Without that assistance, they said, they thought they would have broken up. They were guided to use the Internet to find other resources to support their couple. Another lesbian couple, Betts and Bobbie, felt that no one really cared about their relationship either. They were deeply in love and had been together for 7 years, sharing a house and running a small business together. In attempting to adopt a child recently, they were confronted by a legal system in their state that did not recognize their relationship. They became very depressed and thought it might not be worth it to stay together if they could not get the child they wanted to make them a family. Working in therapy, they were able to see that as a committed entity they could see themselves already as a family. They created the proclamation "We are a family" and again took on finding a way to adopt a child as a couple. Although it was still a difficult process, their support for each other as part of family allowed them to feel more powerful. They found some other couples faced with a similar predicament and started an e-mail correspondence with them. Intercultural Challenges Similar complications and barriers to creating couple occur when partners come from intercultural backgrounds or diverse ethnic, racial, religious, or national groups—a situation that has dramatically increased since World War II (Falicov, 1995; Ting-Toomey, 1994). Although differences in customs and religious practices

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are interesting and exciting, they also often bring up conflict in the couple and within families of origin. This is especially a problem in the United States where diversity is so widespread. Studies have shown that "the greater the difference between the spouses, the less common the pairing and the greater difficulty they will have adjusting" (McGoldrick & Preto, 1984, p. 384). It may be the lack of knowledge of how to deal with these differences that contributes to the dissolution of these relationships and the high incidence of divorce in these marriages. This is particularly the case in families where parental approval of the marital partner is expected. This was certainly the case with Carol and Ravi, discussed earlier, when they went to India to announce their engagement to his parents, who had already made it clear that they wanted him to have an Indian wife. After a very difficult trip, they were both in doubt about their marriage and even talked about breaking up. The therapist helped them clarify their commitment to the relationship and develop ways to support each other as a team in relating to his parents. They were encouraged to acknowledge each other's difficulty with the situation and listen to each other's feelings without criticism. It is important to note that difficulties among intercultural, interfaith, and interracial spouses may be as much in the perception and attitudes about the differences between them as in the actual cultural differences themselves. "Each member of the couple may experience confusion and conflict with the other's norms, values, meanings, and rituals in a manner akin to the dissonance that accompanies migration and cultural change" (Falicov, 1995, p. 234). A case in point is Sonia, discussed above, who left her country of origin to marry her American husband. When he later began talking about separating, she felt confused and alone, not knowing how to deal with the legal system or where to go for support. Her parents encouraged her to come back home, but she stayed, began individual therapy, and worked through the more complex family-of-origin issues in her own background. Though her husband was not interested in couples therapy, the therapist worked with her to create couple as an entity and find ways to cooperate with her spouse in


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dealing with their children and finances. The attitude of the therapist is important here: The therapist must acknowledge the cultural barriers, but not give them so much power that they become a reason or excuse to end the relationship. When spouses in marital conflict are in individual therapy, therapists also need to be careful that solo work does not emphasize individuality so much that the partners end up divorcing. Cultural differences may even be a problem for couples born in the same country. With mobility the way it is today, couples from very different geographic and cultural backgrounds are likely to meet at some common place. However, a husband who grew up in rural West Virginia and a wife from Los Angeles will have many challenges in creating a committed relationship. A case in point is the couple Ray and Laurie, discussed above, who were helped to deal with their divergent geographical backgrounds and preferences by creating the proclamation "We are home for each other." The incidence of interfaith marriages between Jews and nonJews has risen over the years and has become fairly common today. Klaff (1995) reported that between 1985 and 1995, 31% of Jewish-born spouses were married to a non-Jewish partner; compared with just 7% reported in the 1957 Current Population Survey; these rates are particularly high for young married couples: "Since 1985 more than half of born Jews who marry have chosen a non-Jewish spouse who did not convert" (p. 89). Some of these couples (only 5%) deal with the intermarriage by having one partner convert to the other's religion, such as Judaism or Catholicism; others try to accommodate to each other in some way. Interfaith marriages are often problematic in areas related to the second C, cooperation, however, particularly once children arrive. Issues of how to handle religious holidays and upbringing may cause added stress to the couple and family. Expectations and network interference from families of origin are difficult to manage, along with balancing the religious preferences of each spouse. One intermarried couple was helped in therapy to work it out as an entity by raising their children Jewish, but not going to religious family functions in the extended family. This caused some tension with in-laws but workability for the couple, who

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created a community of support with other interfaith couples at their temple. Interracial marriages have also become more commonplace recently (Foeman & Nance, 1999). Although more common, they are not necessarily more accepted. Studies of such couples (Killian, 2001) have shown resistance and lack of community support not only from family and friends, but also from the general public as well. This resistance may go from objection to parents' or relatives' choice of mate to people not attending or walking out of the wedding. Black spouses were reported to have greater sensitivity to resistance and prejudice than White spouses, and were more reluctant to share their feelings about it with their White partners. Both partners were often found to have a "code of silence" about aspects of their family histories "out of family allegiance or loyalty or concerns that their partner many not be empathic to their experiences" (Killian, p. 36). Added to the prevailing cultural norm of not talking about race, this taboo creates a barrier to communication, decreasing the level of openness and intimacy in the relationship. This reluctance to discuss their experience may extend to talking to professionals as well, with many interracial couples shying away from participating in research studies or therapy. One Black woman in Killian's study reported the expectation that if the therapist "was a white man ... he probably would be biased . . . and if he was a black man, then he probably would be like 'you shouldn't have done this in the first place and you shouldn't be having this problem'" (p. 33). Combined with the personal pain, frustration, and anxiety reported by both Black and White partners that comes from negative public reaction, it is not surprising, then, that many couples find it difficult to make a commitment to marry interracially or maintain a viable relationship over time. When they do commit, it is important to help the interracial couple reinforce their commitment with a powerful proclamation and with a supportive community of couples, either in a couples therapy group or elsewhere. The couple might be referred to an organization such as Couples Coaching Couples, PREP, or PAIRS or a nearby church that offers marital support groups.


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Obstacles for Couples Therapists The same obstacles that affect clients affect therapists as well. As therapists, the more aware we are of the cultural influences and personal dynamics regarding relationships in our own lives, the more able we are to monitor them in working with couples. Without this awareness, we risk reducing the effectiveness of treatment or even creating negative effects for clients. Bringing biases, conscious or unconscious, into the therapy can close off possible options and retard progress. Thus, to be part of the solution and not part of the problem, we need to be vigilant about acknowledging to ourselves any prejudices that may be getting in the way of the therapy, such as racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, and the like. We need to know how our own biases operate in ourselves and manage them before helping others deal with their own. Otherwise, we may create another obstacle to achieving successful couple relationships through the power and influence we exert in the therapeutic role. It may not always be possible to eradicate these prejudices, but by acknowledging them and getting supervision or consultation, it is possible to control and monitor them in the best interest of the couple. Sometimes biases create obstacles that show up in countertransference reactions. As always, therapists need to be careful to monitor personal reactions that may be reactivated from their own family of origin or couple relationships. For example, a therapist who has been going through a divorce may have a countertransference reaction that brings up thoughts of his or her ex-spouse. The therapist may discover that he or she begins to side with one spouse or becomes unduly pessimistic about the prospects for a client's relationship. On the other hand, therapists may try too hard to save a marriage because of wanting to fix something from their own dysfunctional family of origin, or may have a bias against divorce for religious or personal reasons that might lead him or her to encourage a couple to stay together when it may not be appropriate. A therapist who was going through a divorce brought up to his peer supervision group problems he was facing about his clients finding out about his personal situation. Discussing this problem

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with the supervision group helped him maintain proper boundaries and manage the transference and countertransference issues. The support of the group gave him encouragement and lifted his mood as well. Perhaps a more pervasive therapeutic obstacle may be related to the individually oriented training discussed above that most therapists receive. Doherty (1997) described how therapists, because of a common view of the primacy of individual happiness, may not be supportive of marriages or committed relationships that might actually be able to be made healthy again. He sees that poor training in marital therapy is often the problem. Many therapists with no specific training or clinical supervision in marital therapy still see couples. If therapists are trained to look only at individuals or at intrapsychic variables, they may ignore the significant impact of culture and systems factors on the couple relationship, or they may not see possible ways that community may support the couple. Family therapist Michael Solomon (1973) described three consequences of individual psychoanalytic therapy in treating a spouse that can "miserably interfere" with the marriage: Often divorce results, and the patient becomes cumbersomely dependent on the psychotherapeutic relationship. If we are not successful in splitting up the marriage, a premature termination occurs. A third result may be that the marital partner seeks out psychotherapy, and the battle of the therapists who over identify with their patients begins to take form and becomes a factor in the marital relationship, (pp. 180-181)

The therapeutic community, like the culture at large, needs to include a new cognition or schema of couple that goes beyond the ethos of individualism so pervasive in our society. As Richardson and Zeddies (2001) aptly pointed out, At the dawn of a new millennium, the first and most important thing psychotherapists can do, we suggest, is to view emotional problems and struggles in a wider social and moral context than is usually the case.... To accomplish this, thera-


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pists will need to expand their horizons and acquire new conceptual tools. ... The core of a better character ideal beyond autonomy and unassailable individuality might be just the capacity for this kind of dialogue, (pp. 21-22)

The mental health profession has often promoted the "disguised ideology" (Richardson, Powers, & Guignon, 1999) of satisfying self-interest and individual goals at the expense of social responsibility and commitment to relationships with others. In addition, social scientists "not only fail to question this myth (ideology) but also endorse it by conducting research that assumes the centrality of the individual and sees marriage primarily as a source of individual benefit (Powers, 2000, p. 97). Several authors since the 1970s (Cushman, 1990; Frank, 1978; Rubin, 1996) have pointed to the deleterious effects of therapies coming out of the psychoanalytic and human potential movements. Lasch (1979) described the "psychological man" of modern times as seeking only personal "peace of mind" and accused therapists of defining "love and meaning simply as the fulfillment of the patient's emotional requirements . . . [without] encouraging the subject to subordinate his needs and interests to those of others, to someone or some cause or tradition outside himself" (p. 13). Most therapists and counselors have, in fact, been trained to look at individual dynamics and needs. Some may have received training in family therapy, but rarely did that include a theory or language for dealing with the couple as an entity. Thus, although many therapists see a couple together in a session, they may still treat each person as an individual with separate problems and goals rather than as partners jointly responsible for their lives as a unit. This individualized therapeutic focus can have an iatrogenic effect on the couple by accentuating their differences and intensifying "the new narcissism" or "isolation of the self" (Marin, Stanley, & Marin, 1975). Seeing members of dysfunctional couples individually rather than as a couple can often isolate them from one another, promoting their separation outside as well as within the therapy, thereby further undermining their relationship. Thus, it is important in such cases to assess whether couples therapy might be the treatment of choice instead

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of or in addition to individual therapy. Sometimes the client continues in individual therapy and is referred to another therapist for couples work. The paradigm of individualism is embedded in the words used in therapeutic language, which, "with its stress on openness, self-development, and change, undermines a larger language of commitment" (Bellah et al., 1985, p. 106). The language that therapists use to describe couples creates the stories they have about their clients and themselves. An individualistic language creates the story of individualism as the truth, leaving little space for couples as viable and enduring entities. Therapeutic language based on individualism and the thinking it generates creates a significant obstacle to the creation of a happy couple in contemporary society, often leading couples to states of despair and loneliness. Couples come to expect their partners to be "a compensation for the meaninglessness surrounding them.. . . Judged against such standards, very few relationships feel adequate" (Lerner, 1995, p. 10). It is these individualistic expectations that may have led Janet Spence (1985), in her American Psychological Association Presidential Address entitled "The Rewards and Costs of Individualism," "to hope—indeed to plead—that psychology and psychologists contribute not to the problem but to its solution . . . [and] renew a national sense of commitment to larger causes that go beyond narrow self-interest and the search for self-satisfaction" (p. 1294). Identifying the roadblocks to couple may seem daunting and discouraging at first. However, by being sensitive to the impact of these barriers on our clients and ourselves and paying attention to the choices other cultures and paradigms present for ways of relating, we may open up areas where we as well as couples may be more supportive of relationships. The obstacles can be framed in therapy as challenges or red flags to take notice of (gender role stereotypes, network interference, and so on) and as common desires that had been ignored (such as spending more time together without the kids). Couples therapy and much of the research conducted concerning its efficacy is based on and maintains the current paradigm of individualism. Conducting clinical practice and research from the perspective that a relationship is primarily a means to serve


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individual needs "may explain why decades of marital research, even though a great deal of it has had the explicit or implicit goal of reducing the divorce rate, has not really helped us reverse the appalling trend of divorce in our society" (Powers, 2000, p. 98). Maintaining an individualistic approach may doom couples therapists and their client couples to the failures of subscribing to that way of thinking. Shifting the paradigm as we propose requires an awareness of the limitations of the current models and the creation of new research and therapeutic strategies. Therapists need to become revolutionaries in overcoming the obstacles to the freedom to be a couple that exist in the dominant culture. It will take courage to do what the husband in an interracial couple requested of the therapist—"to focus on the synthesis, not on division" (Killian, 2001, p. 34). In this sense, couples therapy is a subversive activity that could contribute to breaking down age-old sociopolitical barriers to powerful and effective relationships. "The future depends on each of us raising the bar by committing ourselves to a new perspective of true partnership. We must each become a revolutionary and call on those around us to do the same" (Zaiss, 2002, p. 131).

Contraindications for Couple Power Therapy Couple Power Therapy is not appropriate for every couple or in every case. It works best with those capable of understanding what a commitment is and keeping their word. Below are some common contraindications for CPT: D

Clients are not committed to their relationship or even willing to explore the possibility of committing or recommitting; D Clients cannot imagine themselves together in the future; D One or both members of the couple are having outside affairs and are unwilling to give them up while in therapy; ° Abuse or the threat of abuse makes it impossible for one or both members to feel safe in the relationship; D At least one of the partners is not willing to commit to be in couples therapy; Q One or both members of the couple are unwilling to consider forgiving their partner; or

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a

One or both partners has a serious substance use disorder or a psychological impairment that makes it unlikely that they will hear things in therapy accurately, will perceive reality reasonably clearly, or will be able to empathize with another person.

In the above instances, couples therapy has a very low probability of success because at least one of the Four Cs likely cannot be fulfilled. It is important to note that in some of the cases listed above therapy could proceed, but only if the clients are willing to consider the possibility of change and the idea of commitment. If they are unwilling to even try on the idea of things being different, it is difficult to imagine any progress in treatment together. It may mean that referral for individual therapy or substance abuse treatment is indicated, with the hope that the clients may consider couples work at a later date when the above conditions are satisfied. Knowing when not to do couples therapy is just as important as practicing the therapy itself. To keep using a particular technique when it is not working would be like being stuck in traffic and not getting on another road where traffic is moving more quickly and smoothly. In the process of doing CPT, therapists should operate knowing their basic direction and keep that focus while exploring alternative routes to get there. The therapist has a vision, but does not let it become tunnel vision. Otherwise, the therapist will be like the man who lost his keys and has people looking for them under a lamppost without success: Someone finally asks him why he's looking only there, and he says, "Because this is where the light is." When things are not going well, you may need to get off the track you are on, no matter how drawn to it you may be, and try out other options. Then you may find the key to what you, as well as the couples you are treating, are searching for. An example may prove useful. Sandra and Dirk, who each had been married before, had been married to each other for 3 years. Dirk suggested treatment and asked Sandra to come in with him. From the outset, she seemed unwilling to participate. She had recently become involved with a coworker and noted that she was in part responding to Dirk's earlier infidelity. (In fact, their own marriage was a product of


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an extramarital affair they had with each other while still married to other people.) She felt that his affair marked the beginning of the end for their relationship. She did want to hear what the therapists had to say about Dirk's behavior, however. It was clear from the outset that Dirk wanted to rebuild their relationship. Both he and the therapist asked Sandra if she was willing to give it another try. This would involve terminating her affair and concentrating on recommitting to Dirk and to their marriage. In the first session, the therapist carefully questioned both partners about how they saw their future together. It was clear, however, that Sandra was not interested in recommitting. In fact, she wanted to stay in her new relationship and saw the therapy as a chance to get support for her notion that she was doing the right thing by leaving the marriage. Dirk did not believe her at first and reminded her repeatedly about how much in love they had been only recently. But she could see no future with him, and her commitment to treatment was not a commitment to their couple. The therapist suggested individual therapy for Dirk to address his issues of loss; the therapist also suggested that Sandra consider therapy to address her own behavior patterns, but she declined. This couple may appear at first to be a good candidate for couples therapy in some ways, as there are many couple issues. However, for CPT to be truly effective, the partners must be able to agree on the possibility of committing to being couple together. This couple's lack of commitment constituted an insurmountable obstacle for effective treatment at that time. All concerned were better served by spending their time and energy elsewhere. A therapist may need to see that attempts to continue with a couple in treatment to rescue their relationship may not be in anyone's best interest or constitute good practice. Sometimes the most important thing to know about couples therapy (or any therapy for that matter) is when not to do it.

Chapter

8 Creating a New Future for Couples: Expanding Couple Consciousness nce the tasks of the Four Cs of CPT are fully realized, O there is another task—perhaps a metatask—that may be accomplished that will empower marital satisfaction and enable a "couple revolution" to thrive over time. We call that task couple consciousness, that is, a way of looking at oneself, one's relationship, and the world with the concept of couple as the source or bedrock. Each couple and couples therapist must address for themselves the issue of how they develop couple consciousness. With the fragile state of couples and the individualistic social climate in the world today, mental health professionals have a responsibility to help people create and maintain successful relationships. As responsible therapists and community members, we must not ignore the power of genuine relatedness available through couple and marital relationships. This power of creating relationship entities has to be approached carefully, however. Numerous authors mentioned earlier (Bellah et al., 1985; Lasch, 1979; Richardson, 2001) have pointed out how our profession has systematically or unconsciously over the years promoted an ethos of individualism regarding relationships, leading to a "rather 'thin' conception of a good marriage" (Powers, 2001, p. 336). The perspective of the couple as an entity described in CPT gives both therapists and couples a new possibility for a richer, multilayered, and more substantial notion of marriage and relationships. Operating from 213

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the paradigm of "couplism" and cocreating couple is the genesis of all interactions; it creates the highest manifestation of connection with all beings. The metatask is to generate possibilities both for and from a relationship. Couple consciousness, in this sense, is the source of relatedness deep within the couple itself. So couple consciousness represents not just a way of being for the couple and the therapist, but a defining ethic or a worldview—a lens through which to view life.

Discovering and Expanding Couple Consciousness Most people spend their lives trying to get into relationships, either with or without the help of therapy. However, what clients and therapists seemingly fail to realize is that they are social beings, already in relationships. In the words of Hugh Prather (1970), "Nothing, including me, exists by itself—this is an illusion of words. I am a relationship, ever-changing." The question is what to do and how to behave while in relationship. There is the potential for conflict, upset, and hatred, or there is the hope for cooperation, respect, and love. When couple is viewed as the basis of a wider sense of relatedness and effectiveness in operating with others in daily life, it becomes a filter through which to see the world. This communitarian perspective or consciousness is based on a particular value system—one of commitment and community that runs counter to the individualistic values prevalent in our culture. This perspective requires that therapists abandon "our pretenses to unsullied value neutrality or a Value-free' social science, something many have argued really isn't value neutral at all, but only perpetuates a 'disguised ideology' of conventional individualist ideals" (Richardson, 2001, p. 9). Adopting this way of looking at relationships is consistent with the paradigm shift described earlier that makes the existence and practice of the tenets of CPT a subversive activity of sorts. As Erich Fromm (1950) stated in The Art of Loving, "Important and radical changes are necessary, if love is to become social and not a highly individualistic, marginal phenomenon" (p. 132). Couples and couples

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therapists are at the forefront of these changes when they include couple consciousness and couple power in their therapy and in their world. It is important for us as therapists to convey to our clients that couple consciousness is something that people create or decide to have, not something that happens to them. From this place, couple is not a destination or place to get to; it is a place to come from, a point of origin. Being couple is proclaimed from visions the partners create together, and then they encounter the world through that consciousness. From that place, the couple is not concerned about difficulties or stresses breaking up the couple. The survival of the relationship is not dependent on feelings. It will survive because the partners say that it will. In the words of Scott Peck (1978), genuine love is volitional rather than emotional. The person who truly loves ... has made a commitment to be loving whether or not the loving feeling is present. If it is, so much the better; but if it isn't, the commitment to love, the will to love, still stands and is still exercised, (p. 119)

In a similar manner, when there is couple consciousness, life is not a test; rather, it is seen as a variety of circumstances that a couple approaches together. Their visions and proclamations bind them together in their common goal to be the kind of couple they want to be. This kind of consciousness gives the couple access to couple power. The vision of couple power that they create during treatment allows them to live happily and powerfully together in the world as a cocreating entity through the process of being couple. A great deal of what makes this paradigm shift to couple consciousness possible is the way that both therapists and clients use language. As social critic bell hooks [sic] pointed out, "Our patterns around romantic love are unlikely to change if we do not change our language" (2000, p. 177). That is why client couples are told to speak their couple proclamations regularly and to do so as joint we statements in the present tense—not as individual descriptions of the past or hopes for the future. The therapist will come to see that from the moment the members

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of a couple use the language of proclamation and cocreating to describe themselves, the world begins to look different to them. Their words help them get beyond the patterns of individualism and cynicism that had them repeating old patterns. The power of such words to create and sustain couple relationships is evident in descriptions given by couples involved in CPT and Couples Coaching Couples when they were asked to describe what the experience of being couple was like for them: D D

n D

n D

n

D D n D

D

"knowing that perfect love exists"; "the first time in any therapy I saw any real hope for our relationship"; "a backdrop of ease and grace"; "an opportunity to be bigger than I know myself to be in relationship"; "power and solidarity outside of ourselves"; "being representatives for loving relationships in our communities"; "/ and mine, you and yours evaporated into MS without effort"; "being a bigger, better person than we are by ourselves"; "the only thing that is for sure"; "like touching and caressing your heart"; "a deeply ecstatic, joyful, and satisfied feeling of being in partnership with another person, of knowing and sharing in a way previously unimagined or unimaginable"; "Wowee wow, wow, wow!"

A remarkable example of a shift to couple consciousness through the use of language is provided by Will and Naomi, a young couple who were struggling to make ends meet financially. They had been married for nearly 2 years, but they did not feel economically secure enough to fulfill their dream of having children and owning a house. In couples therapy, they worked to create a vision for the future of their life together that would be free of anxieties about money. They began by inventing a proclamation that made them smile and look lovingly at each other when they said it. This proclamation was "We are a prosperous couple." From that perspective, they began to act like a prosperous couple, repeating this proclamation, which served to remind them daily that they were, indeed, prosperous. They


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spoke with a realtor and learned how much a house they wanted might cost them. They set up a budget and a monthly savings goal. They talked to friends who had children and found that, in the short run, raising a family was not that expensive. They began to practice being prosperous by renting a cottage at the beach for a weekend during the off-season at a reduced rate. The therapist had them visualize themselves as financially secure, and they began to talk about their relationship as "abundant." They were not waiting for prosperity to happen to them, but began to notice where it already existed in their lives. Once a couple like Will and Naomi begins to develop couple consciousness, behaviors such as creating visions and making proclamations become a part of their everyday life together. Anything they encounter can be made into a vision. Proclamations can be invented all the time, every day, not just on special occasions or to handle specific problems. For example, Brian and Jan were married for many years when they first came into couples therapy. They had no children, but both had very highpowered jobs that brought them home exhausted at night after work. Twice a year they would take vacations together and have a wonderful time; they returned relaxed, refreshed, and reluctant to go back to the stresses of the workplace. During therapy sessions, they talked about how oppressed they felt at work. T: Coming back from vacation seems to be a real downer for you both. J: We had such a great time on vacation, we didn't want to come back. T: What is it that you enjoyed most while you were on vacation? B: I am not really sure what one thing was our favorite. What do you think, Hon? J: We certainly ate some great food, and those walks after dinner in the moonlight were really wonderful, so romantic and relaxing. B: I think we just had fun being together without having to worry about work.

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T: So it sounds like being on vacation together was a state of mind in some ways. J: I wish we could bottle whatever that was we had there and bring it back home. T: Maybe you can in a way. You could proclaim that you are on vacation even when you are here. B: I guess we could make that our proclamation.

They realized that keeping some of the feeling of relaxation they had the week before while at the beach would help cushion the blows they both experienced at work. With guidance from their therapist, they created a new and fun proclamation: "We are on vacation!" They repeated this to each other twice a day. By repeating this phrase, they saw that they could preserve some of what was most enjoyable for them during their vacation while at home. They began to go for regular walks in the evening to look at the stars (like on their walks at the beach); they met for coffee three times a week, and had lunch out together whenever they could. They reported that it was like being on vacation all the time! They continued to keep this spirit alive as long as they repeated their proclamation. It did not solve all the problems in their relationship, but it did reduce the stress that contributed to many of their difficulties.

Couple Consciousness as Source: Outward and Inward Before couples terminate therapy, it is useful to explore with them how, in everyday practice, couple consciousness carries over into many areas of their life—child rearing, financial planning, work, and so on. Functioning effectively together is a source of individual accomplishment, family togetherness, and community relatedness. "Healthy, conscious relationships may be the means for individuals to reclaim their 'wholeness' and pass on a peaceful consciousness to future generations" (Luquet, 1996, p. 13). So couple satisfaction contributes both outwardly to others and inwardly to develop personal strength and competence. Both


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of these aspects and benefits of couple consciousness and how they are applied in the latter phases of CPT and afterwards are addressed below. Couple as Outward Source Once a couple makes therapeutic gains and attains couple consciousness, they are able to powerfully affect the world in which they live. People who function effectively in relationships create more humane and honest relationships with their children, parents, extended family, coworkers, and friends. For example, Luquet pointed out that "couples we have worked with who have learned that their relationships may have a healing purpose report not only differences in their relationships and how they express themselves, but a difference in their children as well" (1996, p. 29). This notion of couple consciousness as a way of being that manifests outward into the surrounding environment over time is consistent with Heidegger's notion of "an event that gives constancy to a cultural clearing" (Dreyfus & Wakefield, 1988, p. 279). The clearing created may be perceived as what Dreyfus and Wakefield called a positive or healthy paradigm as opposed to a neurotic paradigm ... that shows the hopeless way things are once and for all. ... A healthy paradigm, on the other hand, allows anomalies to be revealed that can then be focused on as possibilities containing a truth that can challenge the old theory and may become central in a new one. (Dreyfus & Wakefield, 1988, p. 280)

So this new paradigm has the ability to function in opposition to existing individualistic cultural barriers that have fostered a negative or neurotic paradigm for couples and society at large. As bell hooks [sic] has said, "Despair about couple relationships is the source of global despair" (personal communication, 2001). Another way to think about it is, "As the couple goes, so goes the world." If a new paradigm for being together as couple that prolonged and maintained successful relationships was generally accepted

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by social scientists and practitioners, what might the consequences be for the culture at large? If world leaders and social movements understood the power and joy that might really be available through cocreating relationships, what would the future look like? If every couple learned to operate from couple rather than individual consciousness, the world would be very different. There would be a new cultural vision of what is possible for a relationship—one that is hopeful and productive, not stressful and arduous. Being in a relationship would make life easier, not more difficult. People would be optimistic about relationships and the divorce rate would probably be significantly lower. "And perhaps if we do our jobs right, couples therapists will be seen as Nature's agents who brought evolution back on course" (Luquet, 1996, p. 290). As a couples therapist, you could begin expanding couple consciousness as an outward source by encouraging the couples you see in therapy to share their visions and therapeutic gains with others. Couples should be encouraged to get involved with their larger community. They might create gatherings or parties for other couples, families, and friends. The partners may serve as an example in their church, neighborhood, or service club of people who are working effectively together and having fun in the process. In this way, they present themselves not only as happy, fulfilled, and enriched individuals, but also as couples that are supportive and helpful to their partner and others. The couple also needs to be warned, however, that many communities may not expect them to function well as couple. They may be seen in terms of the old individualistic paradigm of two individuals who may get along well together or complement each other, not as a unit functioning as a single entity in the context of a larger community. In the face of such skepticism, the couple may be guided by the therapist to present themselves as a model of how truly to be a couple by sharing with others how their couple unselfishly takes on tasks or projects together. They may be encouraged to find ways to be leaders, participants, or even spectators—as a couple. Even when only one of them is present, in a therapy session or in their outside life, that partner can be there as couple, sharing and creating visions for the couple entity.


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Couple consciousness is best explained through examples of couples operating through a couple way of being in their lives. Howard and Martha, married 10 years, had adopted two young special needs children. They were feeling a great deal of stress, particularly while anticipating the winter holiday season. They shared in their couples group that they were planning a visit to Martha's family, whom they described as devaluing and sarcastic. They had been using for several weeks the proclamation "We are a blessing to each other," which they changed to just "We are a blessing," creating the opportunity for expanding their couple consciousness outward to others. They then had this notion of their "couple as source" for their entire extended family. Martha reported that she acknowledged and praised Howard during telephone conversations with relatives and in front of her family. She had never done this before. They described this visit as the most pleasant they had ever had. Howard said he felt more included than ever before and that everyone seemed more positive and friendly. In a similar way, Sharon and Ron (the couple whose mother and grandmother lived with them) created a new possibility not only for themselves, but for his relatives as well, through the couple consciousness they created in therapy. By following the intention of their proclamation to "back each other up 100 percent," they created a new possibility for Ron's mother and grandmother. Now his mother and grandmother spend the nights and weekends with Ron's aunt and spend the days with Ron and his young children, whom he watches while Sharon is at work. This allowed Sharon and Ron to have some quality family time when Sharon was home, which took the pressure and tension off all of them. The mother and grandmother were more relaxed as well, and the extended family was in better communication with each other. By helping themselves, Sharon and Ron helped their whole family. Another couple, Frank and Dorothy, who had been married 10 years, created a new possibility for their entire community through the development of their own couple consciousness. When they came for therapy, Dorothy was working overtime every night and Frank was spending his free time in a chat room having an Internet affair. It became clear that they had few friends

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in common and very little social life as a couple. After working through their issues and renewing their marriage vows in a therapy session, they organized a picnic at the clubhouse in their subdivision for families all over their neighborhood. It was such a great success that they planned several more community socials throughout the year, forming a network of couples and families that they never knew before. They had expanded their world outward and reinforced the strength of their own couple in the process. The therapist may help a couple create couple as source by asking them to consider particular questions or by assigning homework. You might ask the couple to envision a world where couples are in charge or to look at how the lives of those around them would be if the couple were functioning consistently as a cocreating couple. Homework or an inquiry during a session might focus on engaging the possibility of couple power in their lives, that is, being source in the world for parents, friends, children—and even strangers. One couple even considered running for a political office as couple, with both being fully responsible for all the work and decisions as a team. In addition, the couple may also be encouraged to look at how they are able to empower each other's inner strength and confidence, as described in the next section. Couple as Inward Source Couples therapists have generally operated on the assumption that an individual must first learn to love oneself before he or she can truly love someone else. Over several decades of working with couples, we have found over and over, however, that the process works in reverse as well; that is, couple becomes the source for self-love. It is not just that the couple can be found in self, but that the self can be found in couple. Other disciplines also include many references to this phenomenon. Philosopher Joseph Campbell (1970) has stated that "sacred marriage ... is the source-moment that generates and regenerates the world and man" (p. 251). English professor bell hooks [sic] quoted theologian Thomas Merton in her book All About Love: New


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Visions as she pointed out the healing power of loving relationships: "We discover our true selves in love." ... Intensely connecting with another soul, we are made bold and courageous. Using that fearless will to bond and connect as a catalyst for choosing and committing ourselves to love, we are able to love truly and deeply, to give and receive a love that lasts. (2000, pp. 187-188)

Although some individuals are afraid of losing their identity or freedom in a strong relationship, this is not the case when couple is seen as source, not limitation. In fact, we have found that the identity of the individual is actually strengthened when couple is present. Sharon and Ron, discussed above regarding outward source, provide a powerful example of couple as source working inward as well. Sharon had originally come in for individual therapy to deal with her depression and lack of selfesteem. After several sessions of both individual and couples therapy, she revealed in an individual session that she often felt she was "wrong" and that she should be perfect. She said that as a child she was "always in trouble" with her parents for something. "It's different with Ron," she noted; "I feel supported and know I can get his love and acceptance." After making that connection, she decided to give up not feeling "good enough." Then she shared with Ron a new personal affirmation she created as a basis for their new life: "I am accepted and loved." Ron reminded her of that affirmation regularly. After that time, her confidence improved both personally and professionally, and her trust in their couple was reinforced. Couple consciousness has the ability to empower individuals even if they are not currently in a committed relationship. Single people who desire a partner may be helped during individual treatment to create a statement of the vision of what they want in a relationship. Just as with a couple proclamation it is stated as fact, not hope. That visionary statement or affirmation actually serves to focus attention on creating new possibilities and opportunities. After a while the new language of couple is incorporated

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into consciousness and the client can think and speak it naturally and comfortably. The vision then becomes an active process that manifests in a plan for action. For example, a young single woman talked about a night dream she had while in individual therapy of being in the home of a famous political figure, and of being very attracted to him. At first, she described feeling as though "I do not deserve his attention—I am not good enough for him." At the end of the dream, she tells her friends, "I am going to have a relationship with this man." She was helped to bring this intention into her waking life by creating the proclamation "I am the kind of person that a famous man is attracted to." After this, she felt much more confident to pursue relationship options in her life, which she did with great success. In addition, couple consciousness can serve as a support to an individual whose partner has died. The surviving partner may draw strength from continuing to envision what they had created together. This may be helpful in dealing with grief and developing a positive attitude about the future. One woman in her 70s whose husband had recently passed away used this kind of couple consciousness with the help of her therapist. The woman reported the following dream: "I'm in bed with my husband's arms around me. I feel warm and content as we sleep together. I am pleased and excited when I wake up." The therapist helped her to see that she could continue to keep the pleasant experience of couple with her even in her husband's absence by keeping that couple part of her alive in her vision, dream, and even waking life. She was able to enjoy the experience without hanging on to the painful desire that he return. Later she shared this dream experience with her friends who felt sad when their deceased spouses appeared in their dreams, helping them as well. The tasks of the Four Cs also support couple consciousness both inwardly and outwardly. George and Ann, a couple who struggled for years in their marriage, both had issues of control, and each wanted to be the one to make the major decisions for their couple. They often fought over small things, just to assert their dominance. They had tried to alternate major tasks such as bill-paying and housework to learn each other's perspectives, but their efforts were fruitless. They both thought they had done


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a better job than the other on everything and that their autonomy was being threatened. They finally sought the help of a therapist. With the therapist's help and direction about seeing their couple as an entity, they were able to design a new understanding of their relationship that allowed each partner to be powerful. They developed the proclamation "We are king and queen, ruling our realm together." This notion of couple as a team allowed them to create the vision of a "realm" or single entity jointly ruled with power and generosity. As "royalty," they lived as a partnership defined by commitment, cooperation, communication, and community. Each had a role to play in controlling their world as equals, but with different duties. Their responsibilities as heads of the realm resulted in more cooperation and effective communication. This was necessary for them to be fair and compassionate rulers. They were able to see the world in which they lived not as two individuals but as a couple unit, not as a separate king or queen but as a "royal family." Rather than giving up power or control, each of them was now "more able to be himself—who he really is—in the presence of the intimate other. Being close to the partner supports being a distinct, separate person" (Scarf, 1987, p. 374).

The Future of Couples Therapy The future of couples therapy in the world today includes not only effectively and carefully treating those that come for help, but also working to change our culture so that people are in less need of treatment for dysfunctional relationships. Treatment has the potential to be transformational in changing couples so they no longer need therapeutic services; but the assumptions of good therapy may also create opportunities for prevention. This step toward prevention is taken by promoting an increase in couple consciousness and working to create a world that honors and supports people being in couples, a world that makes time for relationships and minimizes alienation from others. As Erich Fromm (1956) has stated, "Man—of all ages and cultures—is confronted with the solution of one and the same question: the

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question of how to overcome separateness, how to achieve union, how to transcend one's own individual life and find at-onement" (p. 8). Each couple we treat in therapy may go forward as a model for others in their community. They are then able to demonstrate to their children what a healthy relationship looks like and influence future generations in a positive way. Like smokers who give up the habit then create a model for their sons and daughters, or like alcoholics who choose recovery influence their children and grandchildren to face the challenges of their own addictions, so the couple who understands couple as source will change the future. Each couple we treat creates the future of relationships everywhere. To accomplish this goal, it is up to us, not only as therapists but also as role models and social educators, to influence the culture about what might be possible when healthy couples flourish. We need to be proactive in educating the public about what is possible for couples. Our theory and practice themselves constitute a form of social practice. We are accountable for the ways we as professionals approach marriage. ... [GJiven the persistent dilemmas of modern marriage, it may be essential to transcend a subject conception of the good marriage and a technique-focused therapy by questioning the validity and coherence of contemporary ideals of marriage themselves. (Powers, 2001, pp. 337-338)

There are numerous opportunities for mental health professionals to question current practices and to create the future of couples and relationships. Many of us are teachers and role models in our communities. We speak to groups, work in civic affairs, and make media appearances. We may have clinical supervisees or students who will benefit from our perspectives or listen to our case presentations. To be part of the couple revolution, we must follow up on these opportunities and demonstrate our commitment to the principles of healthy relationships. We must challenge restrictive stereotypes of couple, marriage, husband, and wife in Western society and around the world: " . . . if we


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are to create necessary new narratives, new ways of living as women and men together" (Kingston, 2004, p. 289). There is a general Zeitgeist of opportunity available now to shift the prevailing paradigm from individualism to that of couplism—a change that can make our work more effective and enhance the lives of others. To create this change, cultural barriers to being in relationship need to be addressed; obstacles to couple need to be alleviated or circumvented if they are too powerful to overcome. We must help couples foster stronger family values and create more supportive communities. Only then can we stop the current cultural drift that has carried us away from relationship and community and make long-term progress toward a society that supports loving and fulfilling long-term partnerships. This is the larger task of couples therapists—if we are up to it.

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Index Accomplishment in cocreating couple, 56-57 in independent couple, 55 Accountability, of therapist, 136-137 Acknowledgment of couple, at termination of therapy, 147-148 in couples therapy group, 165-166 exercises in, 148-149 as expression of appreciation, 146 from joint vision vs. individually, 146-147 of partner, 104, 145, 197 reception and experience of by other partner, 147 in reinforcement of behavior, 145 as taking responsibility, 145-146 by therapist, 148 Active listening. See Dedicated listening Addiction commitment to therapy and, 66-67 to excitement, 187 Adolescence effect on roles of parent and spouse, 198 Affairs Carl and Jane, 69, 85, 134-135 commitment to therapy and, 66 therapy and, 209, 210-211 Aggression, impact vs. hostile, 138 Agreements, 112 in couples groups, 165 Aldous, ]., 177,198 Androgynous behavior, 46-47 Appreciation (see acknowledgment) of partner's contribution, 105 Asking. See Requesting

Bach, G. R., 128, 136, 138 Handler, R., 84, 126, 136 Beck, R., 74 Beliefs about relationships, unrealistic, 186-187 Bellah, R. N., 176, 208 Bern, S., 103, 192 Berne, E., 78 Bernhard, Y. M., 128, 136 Bettinger, M., 193 Biases of therapist, 205 Blind walk exercise for communication in conflict, 128-129 to develop trust, 128 Body Journey guided fantasy, 130-131 Body language. See Nonverbal communication Boundaries therapist's, 206 Brainstorming for couple proclamation, 79 to find community, 161-162 Bray, }., 106, 107 Cabaj, R. P., 200 Campbell,}., 29, 222 Case(s) abusive relationship: Sonia, 180, 202 addiction of mother: Terry, 66-67 affairs Carl and Jane, 69, 85-86, 134-135 Sandra and Dirk, 210-211 239

240

INDEX

Case(s), continued cocreating couple, 43, 45, 46 commitment and sexuality: Beth and Sam, 65-66, 68-69, 129 and unfinished business: Uri and Margot, 67-68 conflict and blind walk exercise: Gail and Norman, 128-129 and fear of abandonment: Brenda and John, 139 conflict of interest: Carlos and Wanda, 26 control issues: George and Ann, 224-225 cooperation in car purchase: Carrie and Lonnie, 105-106 in spouse's debt: Reese and April, 178-179 and role expectations: Jim and Susan, 104 couple consciousness Brian and Jan, 217-218 Will and Naomi, 216-217 couple proclamation, 85-86 couples community: Jan and Rebecca, 152-154 creation of couple as entity: Barb and Daniel, 31-32 dedicated listening: Uri and Margot, 122-123 distancing of partners: Manuel and Annette, 125-126 fear of abandonment: Jeremy and Jack, 166 flexibility in death of child: Helen and Jamie, 43, 45, 57 gender stereotyping and sex: Linda and Terry, 190-191 hidden payoff: Cal and Jane, 133-134 independent couple: Cal and Judy, 55-56

intercultural couple: Carol and Ravi, 46, 51 intercultural marriage: Carol and Ravi, 202 intercultural marriage and separation: Sonya, 202 joint project for partner: Dan and Mary, 109-110 media effect on sexual intimacy: Jack and Betty, 190 new proclamation in: John and Linda, 80, 89 nonverbal communication Carl and Jane, 127 Uri and Margot, 127-128 paradigm restriction in sexual relationships: Jim and Judy, 21-22 parenting: Gary and Tanya, 196 power and control and commitment, 92, 94 proclamation to bond during separation: Ray and Laurie, 89-90 reframing in commitment struggle: Carl and Jane, 144 in conflict resolution: Wes and Rhonda, 144 requesting and cooperation: Sharon and Ron, 110-111 requesting and cooperative vision: Jenny and Bob, 116-117 restatment of marriage vows: Fred and Donna, 73-74 role-defined couple: Marion and Zack, 53-54 romantic couple: Jared and Jan, 50-51 sacrifice and compromise: Jason and Jodi, 27 same sex couple as family: Betts and Bobbie, 201 from serious to humorous: Marty and Noreen, 114-115

INDEX

sexuality issues and nonverbal communication Beth and Sam, 129 Brenda and John, 131 sexual relationship: Jim and Judy, 21-22 stress of unemployment: Brenda and Dan, 182 superwoman: Lucy, 198 taking time for couple: Rena and Rolf, 184 team spirit in blended family: Anna and Jerry, 107 unfinished business, Sharon and Ron, 223 updating marriage vows for present: Gwen and Jeff, 76, 77 Casual sex, 191-192 Chancey, D., 182 Change flexibility and, 42^13 "inside the box," 20, 22 "outside the box," 20, 22 process of, 37 ritual in, 74 Changing Places exercise, 125 Children adoption of, same sex couple, 201 couple consciousness effect on, 219 effect of divorce on, 177 gender roles in parenting of, 195 inhibition of sexual relationship, 197-198 time and energy for, 196-197 workplace and, 195 Coaching accepting, 102 contexts for, 101 Couples Coaching Couples, 167-168 defined, 101 goal of, 102 by partner, 101, 102 requesting, 102 skills in, 102 by therapist, 101

241

Cocreating couple adaptability of, 54 death of child and, 43, 45 evolution of, 43—44 flexibility of, 41-47, 54 inquiring and discovery and, 142 intercultural example of, 46, 47, 61 as process vs. static behaviors, 42, 43 romantic couple comparison with, 51 vision statements of, 71 as way of being vs. goal to achieve, 42 Cocreation defined, 4-5 inquiry and discovery in, 142-143 Collaboration in couple proclamation, 82 inquiry and, 142 Commitment, 36 assessment of, 92-94 casual sex and, 191-192 of cocreating couple, 56 to common goals, 44 as cornerstone, 63, 65 to couple as entity, 11,15, 34, 65-69 in couple power therapy, 64 couple proclamation and, 78 in couple statement, 72 couple visions and statements, 70-73 defined, 6 exercises and assignments, 74-77 as foundation, 11 importance of, 10 to joint vision, 44-45 lack of as contraindication to couple power therapy, 209, 211-212 models of, 157-158 past problems and unfinished business and, 67-68 questioning of original: Gwen and Jeff, 76-77

242

INDEX

Commitment, continued to relationship, 66 restating marriage vows and, 73-74 of therapist to vision for couple, 66 to therapy as couple, 66-67 in traditional couples therapy, 64 Communication, 12, 36 assessment of, 149-150 assumptions in, 122, 123 barriers to legal system, 180 in cocreating couple, 45-46 dedicated listening in, 121 dedicated observing in, 126-128 dedicated speaking in, 131-148 defined, 6 fatigue and, 183 gender stereotype effect on, 193 in interracial marriages, 204 listening exercises in, 121-126 nonverbal, 122, 123-129 partnership context for, 120-121 in relationships, 20 sexual, media and, 191 through commitment to couple vs. individual, 35 in traditional vs. couple power therapy, 10 Communitarianism and individuality, 154-155 Community, 36 assessment of, 168-169 benefits of, 157-160 commitment models in, 157-158 couple involvement in, 220, 221 couples group as, 153 creating, 162-166 decline in group participation and, 155-156 defined, 6 discovering, 161-162 feedback from couples in, 158 function of, 12 generational or peer, 35-36

horizontal, 161 importance of, 151 interest in problems vs. success of couples in, 153 lack of, 151, 152 lack of support from, 152-154 need for, 154-157 problem solving in, 159 sharing of common experiences in, 159-160 supportive, 227 in support of gay and lesbian couples, 200 vertical, 161 Compatibility cultural assumptions about, 199 idealized concepts of, 199 perception of incompatibility and, 199 Competitiveness vs. cooperation, 97 Compromise, 2 cooperation and, 34 cooperative, 98 negative vs. positive, 97-98 as opportunity, 29 as sacrifice, 28 Confidant outside couple vs. partner, 138 spouse as, 138 Conflict acceptance of, 137-142 acknowledgment of, 137 avoidance of, 137 money issues in, 182 Conflict resolution dedicated listening in, 121 fair fighting in, 139 forgiveness in, 135 schools and, 185 unfinished business in, 139-141 Connectedness with community, 160 Consciousness communitarian vs. individualistic perspective on, 214—215

INDEX Context for exercises and assignments, 75 Conti, L, 120, 121 Contract assessment of achievement, 109 criteria for, 108 for joint project, 116 witnessing of, power of, 108 to work on goals, 107 Cooperation, 11-12, 36 among divorced parents, 107 assessment of, 117-118 in blended families, 106-107 in car purchase project, 105-106 characteristics of, 98 of cocreating couple, 54 concepts in, 34-35 defined, 6 in formation of bond, 98 homework in, 100, 101 with humor, 113-115 individualism vs., 97 Reese and April, 178-179 interfaith marriages and, 203-204 in joint project, 109-110 joint project assignment, 115-116 positive perspective for, 113-114 requests and agreements in, 110-113 respective strengths and contributions in, 105-106 skills of, 100 team spirit in, 106-107 teamwork in, 98-107. See also Teamwork Cooperative coparenting, defined, 107 Cordova, J. V., 63-64 Couple as being vs. doing, 30 birthing of new, 78-79 children effect on, 196-197 cocreating. See Cocreating couple collectivist view of, 44, 45, 47 in current cultural paradigm, 19

243

fixed patterns of, 47-57. See also Fixed couple pattern(s) as genesis of family, 33 in individual paradigm, 29 lack of community support for, 156 media model vs. family model of, 186 as model, 226 network interference in, 156-157 as outward source, 219-221 as parents, 196-197 as process, 72 as process vs. achievement, 43 redefinition of, 19-39 as source of new possibility, 221-222 taking time for, 183, 184 Couple as entity, 4, 5, 6-7 being vs. doing of, 30 in cocreating couple, 44 in couple power therapy, 15 creation of, 78 creation of, Barb and Daniel, 31-32 goals of couple in, 29 needs in, relationship vs. individual, 29 tasks of, 5, 34-36 vs. couple as complementary individuals, 220 Couple as source of self, 222-223, 225 therapist help in creation of, 222 Couple as source of new possibility for community, Frank and Dorothy, 221 for grandmother and mother, Sharon and Ron, 221 Couple communities development of couples therapy groups for, 163 reaching out to create, 163 Couple consciousness carry over of, 218 in control issue example, 224-225

244

INDEX

Couple consciousness, continued defined, 213, 214 examples of, 221-222 Four Cs in support of, 224-225 as inward source, 222-224 manifestation of, 219 as outward source, 219-222 as support in death of partner, 224 Couple declaration defined, 78 Couple identity, 4 Couple paradigm couple as entity in, 28-32 goals of therapy in, 32-36 Couple pattern(s) cocreating perspective on, 57-59 as problem, 57 Couple power therapy (CPT), 4 application to non-couple relationships, 16 contraindications to, 209-211 couple's goals in, 59 health of relationship and individual members in, 32 integration of couples therapy theories and practices, 14—15 obstacles in, 59 perspective of therapist and clients in, 57-58 tasks vs. solutions in, 6 therapeutic goals in, 33 Couple proclamation anchoring of, 86 assignments for, 88 for care of extended family: Sharon and Ron, 82, 110111, 143-144, 157 in Carl's affairs and Jane's sarcasm, 85-86 Claire and Ron, 81 collaboration in, 82 commitment in present vs. wish for future, 81 concrete representations of, 90-92 contract connected with, 108

to counter negative feelings, 143 couple creation power of, 72 creation of new, 88-90 defined, 78 designing, 78-86 development of new, 75-76 dreams and, 80-81 for dual career couple, 183, 184 of elderly couple in second marriage, 79 expression and tone of, 83-86 as expression of commitment, 78 feeling vs. content in, 83-84 focus on couple vs. individual in, 81-82 generation of physical excitement by, 84, 86 impasse in therapy: John and Linda, 89 internal experience of, 84, 86 internal visualization of, 92 of married graduate students, 82-83 modification of, 85 by parents, 197 as positive statement for present vs. wish for future, 79-81 in power and control case, 92, 94 practice assignment for, 101 reaffirmation of, 86-87 repetition and practice of, 87-90 sources for, 80-81 touch or nonverbal action with, 91 unfinished business exercise and, 139, 141, 142 unfinished business in development of, 85 verbalization of, 87-90 visual display of, 91-92 we perspective vs. individual focus, 81-83 Couple revolution, 213 mental health professionals in, 226-227 Couples Coaching Couples (CCC), 167-168

INDEX

description of, 167-168 in development of community, 168 in support of commitment, cooperation, communication, 168 Couple statement. See also Couple proclamation commitment to vision in, 72-73 Couples therapy future of, 225-227 Couples therapy group acknowledgment in, 165-166 example of support from, 163-164 goals in, 165 group agreements in, 165 models in, 166 preparation for, 166 referral to, 163 size of, 164 time frame for, 164 Couple vision. See also Joint vision assignment to design a cooperative future in concrete terms, 116-117 client description of, 70-71 of cocreating couple, 43^14 contract as, 108 of couple, 30 defined, 70 expansion from doing to being in, 72 family models for, 70 media models for, 70 of possible future vs. past, 44 of relationship, 34 statement of, 9, 71-72, 223-224 Couplism, 128 Cultural barriers paradigm shift and, 227 Cultural differences geographic, 203 Cultural myths media and, 186 Culture couple consciousness effect on, 220

245

defined, 174 individualistic fixed couple patterns in, 48 identity in, 41^12 influence on couples, 176 influence on therapist, 176 interpersonal development and, 174-175 as obstacle to couple relationship, 174 paradigm of individualism in, 176-184 Dalai Lama, His Holiness, 9 Dedicated listening. See also Listening Changing Places exercise, 125 comparison with active listening, 121

defined, 121 If I Were Alone exercise, 124, 125-126 perception of incompatibility and, 199 written exercises for spoken sharing, 124-125 Dedicated observing, in communication, 126-128 Dedicated speaking accepting conflict and negative feelings in, 137-142 acknowledgment in, 145-148 expressing forgiveness in, 135-136 hidden payoff and, 134-135 inquiring in, 142-143 intention to communicate and, 131-132 reframing in, 143-145 taking responsibility in, 132-134 therapist accountability in, 136-137 Diversity gay and lesbian couples, 200-201 intercultural, 201-204 Divorce children and, 177

246

INDEX

Divorce, continued individualism and, 179-180 normalization of, 179 rates of, 4 therapist's and, 205-206 Doghouse Release, 136 Domestic violence criminal justice system and couple, 180 Dreams couple proclamation and, 80-81 Dreyfus, H. L., 219 Dual-career couple children and, 196 communication in, 183 expectations of feminism and, 194-195 job change and, 182 refocusing on couple entity in, 184 sexual intimacy and, 183-184 sexual intimacy in, 183-184 Durrant, M., 58 Echoing, as listening exercise, 122, 123, 124 Egocentrism, conflicts of interest and, 25-26 Electronic communication, community and, 152 Empowerment, in couple as entity, 30 Enright, R. D., 135, 188 Entitlement, 177 vs. community, 35 Epston, D., 8 Etzioni, A., 154-155 Expectations clarification of, 103 cultural, 20 family, 193 in individualism paradigm, 28 individualistic, 208 partner's, 64 role, 104 therapist's, 37

vision os., 46 of women, feminism and, 194 Externalization benefits of, 175 Fairbairn, W. R., 174 Fair fighting, 138, 139 Falicov, C. J., 202 Fear of abandonment, 126, 139 couples therapy group for, 166 Four Cs and, 178 Fear of intimacy in independent couple, 55 individualism and, 24, 25 Fear of rejection communication and, 126 Fear(s) in individualism, 178 loss of identity, 223 of negative feelings, 137-138 Feedback exercise, for listening, 122 Feminism effect on men, 194 idealized woman in, 194-195 Fishman, C. H., 9 Fitzgibbons, R. P., 135 Fixed couple pattern(s), 47-48 as developmental stage, 48 independent couple, 54-57 individualistic culture and, 48 role-defined couple, 52-54 romantic couple, 48-51 Flexibility in cocreating couple, 41^7 death of child and, 43 in parenting roles, 197 Forgiveness asking for, 135 expressing, 135-136 fair-fight training ritual, 136 forgiving self and, 135 responsibility for, 135-136 Four Cs, 5, 6 commitment, 5, 6 communication, 5, 6 community, 5, 6

INDEX

cooperation, 5, 6 of couple power, 34-36 focusing on, 6 independent couple and, 178 in sequence, 12-13 as tasks of couple power therapy, 5 Powers, B. J., 15, 23, 29, 98,119,138139,160, 207, 209, 213, 226 Fox, G. L., 182 Fromm, E., 213, 225-226 Gawain, S., 92,134 Gay and lesbian couples adaptation in, 201 discrimination against, 200 as family, 201 lack of community and institutional support, 200-201 nonconformity to role norms in, 192-193 stresses in, 201 Gender roles danger of, 104 in marriage, 103, 192 rigid, 103 Gender stereotypes communication about sex and, 190-191 communication and, 193 formal education and, 185 Gladwell, M., 5-6 Goals assessment of, 33 commitment to common, 44 of couple as entity, 29 in couple power therapy, 33, 59 of couple relationship, 30 in couples group, 165 in individualism paradigm, 24 individual vs. relationship needs, 24 requirements for, 99-100 statement of, 71 teamwork and, 98-99 of therapy, 133 in couple paradigm, 32-36

247

Goal setting, 99-100 as promise or contract, 107 requirements in, 99-100 team spirit in, 106 Green, R. J., 193 Grief, couple consciousness and, 224 Grinder, J., 84, 126, 136 Groups. See also Couples therapy group decline in participation in, 155-156 Guided fantasy applications of, 131 Body Journey, 130 Hacker, A., 23, 26 Health of relationship and individual members, 32 Hiddden payoff taking responsibility for, 134—135 hooks, b., 215, 219, 222, 223 Huber, C., 64, 178 Hudson, P. O., 15, 65, 67, 71, 75, 99100, 127, 133,142, 144, 147 Humor in facilitation of cooperation, 113-115 serious couple example, 114-115 Idealization of couple relationship, 49, 70 by romantic couple, 49 Idealized images of children, 195-198 of compatibility, 199 in educational system, 184, 185-186 in feminism, 194-195 gender stereotypes, 185, 190-193 in the media, 184, 186-190 Ideal partner, 49, 50 Identity fear of losing, 223 in individualistic culture, 41^12

248

INDEX

If I Were Alone exercise, 124, 125-126 Impact aggression vs. hostile aggression, 138 Independence vs. emotional attachment, 177 Independent couple, 54-57 accomplishment as substitute for intimacy in, 55 Cal and Judy: separation for jobs in separate cities, 55-56 comparison with cocreating couple, 56-57 dual-career couple example of, 54-55 separate agendas vs. common goal in, 177-178 simultaneous independence and togetherness in, 54 Individual relationship to couple entity, 6 Individualism paradigm, 4, 24-28. See also Paradigm(s) commitment and, 208 conflict between independence and relationship, 177 couple in, 29 in couples therapy, 208-209 divorce and, 177 divorce rate and, 24 economic variables in, 181-184 egocentrism in, 24, 25-26 fear of intimacy in, 24, 25 ideals and expectations of relationships in, 28 individual goals vs. relationship needs, 24 in institutions, 179 legal system and, 179-180 limitations of, 23, 24-25 positive outcomes of, 23-24 relationships and, 4 sacrifice and compromise in, 24, 26-28 self-interest in, 176 therapeutic language in, 208

therapist and, 206-207 workplace and, 181-184 Individual psychoanalytic therapy consequences to marriage, 206 Interconnectedness, 160 Intercultural couples conflict with families of origin, 202 divorce in, 202 perception of differences in vs. actual differences, 202-203 Interdependence, 160 Interfaith couples perceived vs. cultural differences, 202 Internal experience of couple proclamation, 84, 86 Interracial couples, 202 Interracial marriage communication in, 204 resistance to, 204 Interracial marriage, referral to couple support in, 204 Intimacy Body Journey guided fantasy and, 131 challenges to, 152 fears of, 178 sexual and dual-career couple, 183-184 workplace effect on, 182-183 at work vs. at home, 181-182 Izard, C. E., 277 Jackson, D. D., 192 Jacobson, N. S., 63-64 Job changes of, dual-career couple and, 182 loss of, 181, 182 pressures of in conflict with personal commitments, 181 vs. family, 181 Johnson, M. P., 156 Joint vision. See also Couple vision of cocreating couple, 44

INDEX

commitment to, 65 couple proclamation of, 81 Jordan, T. J., 186 Keleman, S., 86 Killiam, K. D., 204, 209 Kingston, A., 189, 227 Koch-Sheras, P. R., 30 Kowalski, K. M., 58 Kroeger, L., 187 Kuhn, T. S., 37 Landry, T., 101 Language change and, 8 of creative unconscious, 8 importance of, 6-7 power of, 71 of self-responsibility, 8 in shift to couple consciousness, 215-216 example of, 216-217 therapeutic as obstacle, 208 Lasch, C, 23, 177,192, 207 Lederer, W. J., 192 Lee, 138 Legal system communication and, 180 divorce and, 179 separation and, 179-180 welfare laws and, 179 Lerner, M., 208 Lesbian. See Gay and lesbian couples Listening. See also Dedicated listening exercises in, 121-126 individual issues in therapy and, 69 Love, social vs. individualistic, 214 Loyalty, job vs. family, 181 Luquet, W., 218, 219 Madsen, R., 176 Marital satisfaction, 3

249

Marriage child-free, 195 in competition with parenthood, 196-197 in current paradigm, 20 educational view of, 185 gender roles in, 192 myth of, 23 open, 50 psychological remarriage and, 78 religious training for, 185 serial, 64-65 traditional, roles in and effect on women, 103 Marriage therapy couples therapy vs., 13-14 therapist training as obstacle, 206 Marriage vows in process of creating couple vision, 74 repetition of as homework, 78 restatement of, 73-74 updating for the present: Gwen and Jeff, 76, 77 as vision statement and commitment to couple, 73 McCormick, M., 186 McFarlane, A. C., 72 McGoldrick, M., 73-74, 103, 185 Media, the couple model in, 70, 186 romantic couple in, 189 Men, feminism effect on, 194 Mental health profession individualism and, 213 paradigm change and, 36-37 promotion of self-interest and individualism vs. social responsibility and commitment, 207, 208 Metrick, S. B., 74 Michaels, S., 200 Milardo, R. M., 156 Mind check, as listening exercise, 122, 123 Minuchin, S., 9

250

INDEX

Miracle question in proclamation design, 79 Montuori, A., 120, 121 Movies idealized image of sex in, 187 Narcissism, 177, 207 Narrative, cultural, 175 Narrative therapy, 8 Negative emotions resentment and, 139 Negative feelings fear of, 137-138 News shows career/financial success vs. family values in, 189 Nock, S. L., 29 Nonverbal communication blind walk exercise in, 128-129 cues in, 126 exercises in, 128-131 for sexuality issues, 129-130 Obstacle(s) casual sex, 191-192 for couple power therapists, 205-209 culture as, 174-176 diversity in couples, 199-204 educational system, 185-186 gender stereotypes, 190-193 idealized images, 184-199 media-generated, 7, 70, 186-190 paradigm of individualism, 176-184 paradigm shift and, 227 as possibilities, 59 therapist as, 205, 206, 208 O'Hanlon, W. H., 15, 65, 67, 71, 75, 99-100, 127, 133, 143, 144, 147 Open marriage, 50 Paradigm(s). See also named, e.g. Individualism paradigm changing of, 36-38

of cocreating couples, 213-214. See also Couple consciousness concept of, 20-22 of couple, 28-36 current, 22-24 healthy vs. neurotic, 219 of individualism, 24—28 as normative vs. restrictive, 20-21 therapists and, 21 Paradigm shift fears and potential with, 38-39 future perspective in, 38 from individualism to couplism, 227 requirements for, 38 Parenthood, romantic ideal of, 195-196 Parenting role-defined model, 198 role flexibiity in, 197 Parents competition for child's affection, 198 as models of commitment, 157-158 Partnership basis of, 120 of cocreating couple, 45 dialogue and, 120 dialogue in, 120 Partnership virtues, 29 Past issues and commitment, 67-68 Pattern(s) cocreating vs. fixed, 42 fixed. See Fixed couple pattern(s) Patterson, D. G., 200 Peck, S., 215 Peers, as models of commitment, 158 Percept language, 133-134 Performance anxiety sexual, media and, 191 Popenoe, D., 23, 179 Possibility

INDEX in couple power therapy, 7 in relating, 9 Practice assignments for, 101 of cooperation skills, 100 of couple proclamation, 101 meanings of, 100-101 Prather, H., 214 Prejudices of therapist, 205 Print media beliefs about relationships in, 186-187 Problems externalization in culture, 175-176 Problem solving communities of couples in, 159 Promises delivering on, 107-110 Psychoanalytic movement therapies based on, 207 Purcell, D. W., 200 Race taboo against discussion of, 204 Referral to couples therapy group, 163 to couple support in interracial marriage, 204 to individual therapy, 210 Reframing of complaints as progress, 144-145 in dedicated speaking, 143-145 of negative feelings, 143 of problem as result of obstacle, 143-144 at termination of treatment, 147-148 by therapist, 144 therapist's role in, 144 Relationships perspectives on, 8 in print media, 186-187 Relationship skills educational system and, 185-186

251

Renaming, of negative behavior or cognition, 145 Requesting fear of, 110, 116 Requests analogy of request of parachute packer, 112-113 assignments for, 116 honoring, 111 how to, 110-111 practicing in therapy, 112 response to, 111-112 usefulness of, 111 Resentment, 139 Rice, C. A., 174 Richardson, F., 160, 206-207 Ritual power of, 74 witnessing in, 108 Rogers, C., 58 Role-defined couple comparison with cocreating, 54 comparison with cocreating couple, 54 deferral of promise to supporting partner, Marion and Zack, 53-54 defined, 52 effective therapy with, 193 lack understanding of cooperation and mutuality needed for couple entity, 52 supporting partner in, 52, 53 Role expectations, 104 Roles alternatives to traditional, 104 clarification of, for cooperation, 102-104 gender-based, effects of, 102-103 idealized sexual, 192 in traditional marriage, 103-104 Romantic couple, 48-51 comparison with cocreating couple, 51 desire for ideal partner in, 50 idealization by, 49

252

INDEX

Romantic couple, continued inability to sustain romance: Jared and Jan, 50-51 romance as dominant way of operation in, 48, 49 Romantic love, advantages and disadvantages of, 49-50 Rosemond, J., 196 Rutan, J. S., 174 Sacrifice, 26-27 as compromise, 27-28 example of, 53-54 and gender role conflict, 27 for other vs. for couple, 52 in role-defined couple, 52 Same sex couples. See Gay and lesbian couples Sarnoff, I., 184 Sarnoff, S., 184 Scarf, M., 225 School violence relationship skill training and, 185-186 Schwartz, P., 200 Secondary gain, 134 Self couple as inward source of, 222223, 225 fear of loss of, 178 Self-absorbed client, cooperation and, 113-114 Separation legal counsel in, 179-180 Serial marriage, 64-65 Sex in current paradigm, 20 idealized image of, 187 Sex therapy, physical exercises for, 129 Sexual intimacy, dual-career effect on, 183-184 Sexual issues Body Journey guided fantasy and, 130-131 commitment and, 65-66, 68-69

inquiry and, 142 nonverbal exercises for, 129-131 Sexual relationship case of paradigm limitation on, 21-22 children and privacy for, 197-198 couple vs. individual in, 188 gender stereotyping effect on, 190-191 media effect on, 187 unrealistic expectations of, 187, 188, 190 Sexual roles idealized, rigid, 192 Shaevitz, M. H., 194 Shapiro, J., 187 Sheras, P. L., 30 Smedes, L. B., 135 Solomon, M., 206 Solutions first order, 37-38 possible, 38 Spence, J. T., 177,208 Strengths for communication, 119-120 for cooperation, 105-107 focus on, 58 identification of, 105-106 Substance use disorder as contraindication to couple power therapy, 210 Sullivan, W. M., 176 Superwoman syndrome, 194-195 Support from couples therapy group, 163-164 Swidler, A., 176

Taking responsibility for conflict and negative feelings, 137-142 as couple, 132-133 for forgiveness, 135-136 for hidden payoff, 134-135 as individual, 133-134

INDEX I statements vs. you statements in, 132 for own perceptions, 133-134 therapist accountability as, 136 Talk shows, anger of couples on, 188 Task(s). See also Four Cs commitment, 34 communication, 35 community, 35-36 completion and mastery of, 13 cooperation, 34-35 in couple power therapy, 6, 13, 15-16 in exercises, 75 Teamwork coaching for, 101-102 of cocreating couple, 45 comparison of committed relationship with playing a game, 98-99 goals and rules of game and, 98-99 goal setting in, 99-100 identification of respective strengths and contributions, 105-106 practice in, 100-101 role clarification for, 102-104 team spirit in, 106-107 Television idealized couples on, 188 Therapist as agent of change, 37 biases and prejudices of, 205 commitment to vision for couple, 66 couple as entity and, 207 and cultural differences in couple, 203 humorous insights of, 114 individual therapy for spouse in marital conflict, 203 influence of culture on, 176 paradigm shift in relationships and values, 36-37

253

partnership perspective of, 209 perspective of, in couple power therapy, 57-58 refraining by, 144 role in couple proclamation, 83-84 shift from analysis to vision, 39 as social educator, 226 vision of, for couple, 66 Therapy coaching in, 101-102 goal setting in, 99-100 inability to commit to, 69 individual background work in, 65-69 individual issues in, 69 past problems and unfinished business in, 67 Threats in conflicts of interest, 26 Time out in conflict, 139 Ting-Toomey, S., 44, 174, 177 Tipton, S. M., 176 Traditional behavioral couple therapy (TBCT) results with, 3-4 Transference and countertransference as obstacle to couple power, 206 Unfinished business commitment and, 67-68 in development of couple proclamation, 85 Sharon and Ron, 223 in therapy, 67 Unfinished business exercise, 141 in conflict resolution, 139-141 Van der Kolk, B. A., 72 Videotalk, 127 of acknowledgment, 147 Videotaping, of nonverbal communication, 127 Vision statement, of individual, 223-224

254

INDEX

Wakefield, }., 219 Wangyal, T., 72 Watzlawick, P., 37 Weir, J., 133-134 Weisaeth, L., 72 Welfare laws, couples and, 179 Welwood, J., 64, 70-71 White, M, 8 Wile, D. B., 49 Withdrawal in conflicts of interest, 26

Work ethic vs. couple ethic, 181-182 Workplace family well-being and, 181 Wyden, P., 138

Zacks, E., 293 Zaiss, C, 160, 209 Zeddies, T., 160, 206-207

About the Authors Peter L. Sheras, PhD, ABPP is a clinical psychologist and a professor in the University of Virginia's Curry Programs in Clinical and School Psychology. He has been in part-time independent practice for nearly 30 years and has authored publications on couples, parenting, youth violence, and adolescent development, including Your Child: Bully or Victim? Understanding and Ending Schoolyard Tyranny (2002), "I Can't Believe You Went Through My Stuff": How to Give Your Teens the Privacy They Crave and the Guidance They Need (2004), and Clinical Psychology: A Social Psychological Approach (1979). He is the coauthor of the Stress Index for Parents of Adolescents (SIPA). He holds a diplomate in clinical psychology, is a fellow of the American Academy of Clinical Sexologists, and past president of the Virginia Psychological Association. He appears frequently as an expert in the media on topics of couples, adolescents, and families. He received his doctorate from Princeton University. Phyllis R. Koch-Sheras, PhD, is a practicing clinical psychologist and coauthor of several books on dreams and couples, including The Dream Sourcebook (1995), The Dream Sharing Sourcebook (1998), and Dream on: A Dream Interpretation and Exploration Guide for Women (1983). She is past president of the Virginia Applied Psychology Academy and the Virginia Psychological Association. Dr. Koch-Sheras received her doctorate from the University of Texas and has worked in state hospitals, university counseling centers, and independent practice. She is an adjunct faculty member in the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education. The authors have been working with couples together since the mid-1970s and have been training other therapists for 25 years. They have been happily married for nearly three decades and have two adult children. Drs. Sheras and Koch-Sheras are featured regularly on the radio and live in Charlottesville, Virginia. 255

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