Among gay and bisexual men, primary partners are a leading source of HIV infection. Trust, intimacy, and advancements in HIV treatment may impact same-sex male (SSM) couples' decisions to engage in unprotected anal intercourse (UAI). This qualitative study explored how Black, White and interracial couples discussed, and made decisions regarding condoms. Qualitative interviews were conducted wit...

The revelation of an affair is often an emotionally explosive event for a couple, yet little is known about specific individual and relationship factors that accompany infidelity. The present study examined the qualities of individuals and couples that differentiate couples with (n = 19) and without (n = 115) infidelity using couples from a randomized clinical trial of marital therapy. Findings...

Emotionally focused couple therapy (EFT) is an empirically validated approach to couple therapy that uses attachment theory to understand the needs and emotions of romantic partners. EFT is recognized as one of the most effective approaches to couple therapy, but to guide therapists in their use of EFT, a theoretically based model to predict change is needed. This study tested such a model by r...

We find interventions targeting serodiscordant couples (SDC) may not be feasible in countries where HIV prevalence is less than 5%, because only 3-19/1000 individuals are HIV-positive/negative and in SDC. Interventions may be feasible in countries where prevalence is greater than 10%, because 34-48/1000 individuals are HIV-positive/negative and in SDC. We calculated that 20-27% of all HIV-posit...

Couple therapy research affirms that various approaches to couple treatment produce statistically and clinically significant improvement for a substantial proportion of couples in reducing overall relationship distress. Recent studies have extended these findings in indicating the effectiveness of couple-based interventions for a broad range of coexisting emotional, behavioral, or physical heal...

Though it is clear from meta-analytic research that couple therapy works well, it is less clear how couple therapy works. Efforts to attribute change to the unique ingredients of a particular model have consistently turned up short, leading many researchers to suggest that change is due to common factors that run through different treatment approaches and settings. The purpose of this article i...

In this article, we propose the vulnerability cycle as a construct for understanding and working with couples' impasses. We expand the interactional concept of couples' reciprocal patterns to include behavioral and subjective dimensions, and articulate specific processes that trigger and maintain couples' entanglements. We consider the vulnerability cycle as a nexus of integration in which "vul...

This article describes an innovative model of couples therapy designed to mitigate marital instability. The authors suggest that combining ongoing couples therapy with a separate relationship-focused group for each partner favorably impacts each person's neuropsychophysiological regulation and their ability to participate in a stable intimate marriage. The neurobiology of attachment theory is s...

In this article, we review the major conceptual and clinical influences and trends in the history of couple therapy to date, and also chronicle the history of research on couple therapy. The evolving patterns in theory and practice are reviewed as having progressed through four distinctive phases: Phase I--Atheoretical Marriage Counseling Formation (1930-1963); Phase II--Psychoanalytic Experime...