back to books and tapes

From the outline that accompanies the audiotape Working with Couples in Conflict

Part 1

Couples Therapy: Why are couple therapy skills essential for all therapists?

• Couple treatment is generally the best treatment option for individuals with problems if they are married, as well as for patients asking for marital counseling.
• Consequences can be serious for the spouse and for the marriage when married patients are treated with individual therapy without a marital component.

Essential premises

• Premise #1: Conflicts, within and between people, lie at the core of emotional distress.
• Premise #2: Therapy involves attention to three tasks.

1. Eliminating symptoms.
2. Guiding existing disturbing conflicts to resolution.
3. Coaching skills for handling subsequent conflicts.

• Premise #3: Whatever or whomever the conflicting entities, conflicts move to resolution via passage through the same three-step route.

1. The three steps

   a. Expressing initial positions
   b. Exploring underlying concerns
   c. Creating win-win solutions

2. Critical conceptual distinctions

   a. Concerns versus solutions
   b. The impact of "but"
   c. Positional bargaining from excessive attachment to initial solution suggestions (positions)
   d. Importance of specificity and summarizing
   e. One solution versus multiple solution options and solution sets
   f. Breadth and depth of concerns and how these vary for different kinds of conflicts.

$35.00 Two-tape audio set 107 minutes, ISBN 0-393-70151-4 (1992)

Order this selection     

back to books and tapes