By: Gerald R. Weeks Publisher: Routledge Average Rating: Binding: Hardcover Label: Routledge Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 312 Publication Date: March 09, 2001
Product Description: Since publication of the first edition of Couples in Treatment, this classic text has been 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. With the same clarity of focus and style, Gerald Weeks and Stephen Treat have now updated and added to the original discussions of basic principles, approaches, and techniques that include assessment and case formulation, systemic intervention, enhancing intimacy, marital contracting, and conflict resolution.
Two entirely new chapters cover work with highly reactive and narcissistically wounded couples and treatment of extramarital affairs. Honed and refined throughout four decades of clinical experience with 40 couples each week, the authors' approach is unique in its simultaneous emphasis on both problem resolution and couples growth. This second edition promises continued popularity with novice and veteran therapists in their efforts at ever more effective couples therapy.
Start your couples therapy here! 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.
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