Research Perspectives in Couple Therapy

In this powerful volume, six qualitative methods are used to analyze a couple therapy with a troubled young couple, illustrating the intricate processes and sub-processes of therapy through client interactions with their therapists and with each other. Increasingly popular for revealing the nuances and complexity of human interactions, qualitative approaches focus on process and discursive methods which can be particularly rewarding in multi-client settings. Through the examples that make up the text, practitioners and researchers become better acquainted  with the power of qualitative perspectives and are encouraged to examine their own views on therapy as they consider these and other concepts:

The development of dialogical space in a couple therapy session.

Introducing novelties into therapeutic dialogue: the importance of minor shifts of the therapist.

Therapists' responses for enhancing change through dialogue: dialogical investigations of change.

Fostering dialogue: exploring the therapists' discursive contributions

in a couple therapy.

Dominant story, power, and positioning.

Constructing the moral order of a relationship in couples therapy.

Research Perspectives in Couple Therapy: Discursive Qualitative Methods ably demonstrates the balance between therapeutic art and science for family and couples therapists, psychologists, and other mental health professionals in research and practice.

Maria Borcsa Ph.D., Professor in Clinical Psychology at the University of Applied Sciences Nordhausen, Germany. She is an accredited Psychological Psychotherapist, Systemic Family Therapist, Supervisor and Trainer. As a professor she teaches systemic approaches in the following programs: Health and Social Services (B.A.), Social Management (B.A.) and Systemic Counseling (M.A.), the latter developed by her as the first-ever training program in this approach at a German university. She has been a co-editor of the Austrian-German journal 'Systeme' (since 2001) and of the journal 'PiD - Psychotherapie im Dialog', Stuttgart: Thieme (since 2007). Since 2007 she has been a board member of EFTA - European Family Therapy Association, 2010 she was elected Chair of the EFTA-Chamber of National Family Therapy Organizations. Peter Rober Ph.D., Professor in Clinical Psychology at Leuven University (KU Leuven), Belgium. He is a family therapist, supervisor and family therapy trainer. His research focus is on family therapy and family communication (e.g. family secrecy, selective disclosure, dialogical space, ...). He has written four books in Dutch and has published several articles in international journals on family therapy and qualitative research.