Couples in Treatment
by Gerald Weeks, Stephen Treat
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Book Summary Information
Author: Gerald Weeks, Stephen TreatEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-03-09
ISBN: 1583910387
Number of pages: 312
Publisher: Routledge
Book Reviews of Couples in Treatment
Book Review: Start your couples therapy here!
Summary: 5 Stars
Gerald Weeks and Stephen Treat present "...the basic techniques, methods, and strategies needed by the couples therapist. (p. ix)" The text is intended to be a practical guide, not a theoretical treatment, and to emphasize both growth and enhanced intimacy as goals in therapy.
Principles and strategies
Weeks and Treat begin from the premise that effective therapy can draw on a variety of systemic techniques, as well as individual interventions. They call this the "intersystems" approach to therapy. While the first half of the book draws heavily on systemic and strategic frames for the therapeutic process. The second half of the book introduces eight distinct strategies for change, including a wide range of therapeutic modalities.
The preface summarizes the contribution of each chapter in a short paragraph (pp. ix--xi). The book is divided into two parts:
Basic principles for doing couples therapy
Part 1 contains seven chapters discussing basic principles, including...
* assessment and treatment plan formulation,
* orienting couples to therapy,
* balancing interventions among individuals,
* systemic interventions (as opposed to linear),
* attending to process, not just content,
* effective focus and managing intensity, and
* including individual modalities and interventions in systemic therapy.
Standard techniques and strategies
Part 2 focuses on eight different techniques and strategies, including...
* enhancing intimacy, not just problem-solving,
* reframing as a basic therapeutic strategy,
* communication techniques and coaching,
* conflict intervention and management,
* cognitive strategies, including RET and cognitive therapy,
* styles of contracting within marriage,
* attention to feelings as a therapeutic focus, and
* use of assignments outside of therapeutic sessions.
Commentary
This book fits its description as an introduction or review of basic couples therapy. By focusing on the overall process of therapy in the first half, Weeks and Treat assure that therapists keep the main thing the main thing--helping couples make the changes that brought them to therapy. In the second half of the book, they illustrate how to incorporate a variety of systemic and individual treatment modalities into their systemic frame. By reframing these techniques as all being valid contributors to the change process, they avoid the historic criticism that each systemic thinker recasts all of therapy according to their particular lens.
Still, they find ample room to promote their own contributions, including frequent references to their own previous published works, alone and with collaborators. The identification of enhanced intimacy as an underlying goal for couples' therapy in chapter 8 seems common sense, but can easily be lost by problem- or solution-focused therapists.
Obviously there are more techniques that could be discussed, and more explicit references to the primary literature could be included. For instance, there is not much focus on...
* narrative therapies, and the use of stories, both personal and metaphorical,
* solution-focused and brief therapies, which might be contrasted by their parsimonious approach to an aggregative intersystems model,
* multi-generational and developmental perspectives, which are more longitudinal in focus rather than present-focused, or
* paradoxical double binds, with their emphasis on radical breakthroughs.
Overall, I greatly enjoyed the book, particularly as a text which engages therapists and potential therapists immediately in the pragmatics of doing marital and couples therapy, regardless of their previous exposure to theory or technique.
Summary of Couples in Treatment
This classic text is an indispensable resource for beginning couples therapists: a concise, practical guide to moving from theory and content to process and the therapist's use of self.Compulsive Behavior Books
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