The Marital-Relationship Therapy Casebook

Book excerpt: The Marital-Relationship Therapy Casebook is a volume of in-depth cases that exemplify state-of-the-art couple therapy. It is based on the highly respected work of the Marriage Council of Philadelphia, one of the oldest training and treatment centers in the U.S. that has been exclusively devoted to couple and marital therapy. The book clearly demonstrates, through 10 clinically rich case studies, the Marriage Council's Intersystem Model. Readers will benefit greatly from this model, a multi-level, comprehensive, integrative, and contextual approach. Its success sterns from the belief that it is essential to fit the therapy to the client­ system rather than the client-system to the therapy. The model will allow readers to systematically add to techniques they already use, providing a highly flexible system that offers the therapist varied ways to approach problems. The case studies reflect the unique skills and therapeutic stance required for effective couple therapy. The book describes how to conceptualize and treat couples and illustrates, step-by-step, the intricate process of doing couples work according to the Intersystem Model. It repeatedly emphasizes the importance of not pathologizing one partner at the expense of the other, and of being ever-vigilant of the interlocking nature of each partner's personality, interactional style, intergenerational history, and, sometimes, pathology in the relationship. The Marital-Relationship Therapy Casebook is a continuation of the theories of the Intersystem Model presented in Treating Couples and Couples in Treatment. This current volume will continue to provide couples and marital therapists with the wisdom of some of the finest practitioners in the field.