Phase I 1930 to 1963 Atheoretical

1929 to 1932 Three marital clinics opened; they were service and education oriented, and generally worked with individuals, discussing their difficulties adhering to traditional gender role expectations The closest thing to theory was what was !orrowed from psychoanalysts "ro!lems !etween the spouses were seen as interlocking neurosis #ach spouse had a neurotic conflict inside them which they pro$ected onto the other spouse; the other spouse accepted this !ecause it fit with their own neurosis Thus, a person with a need to control partnered with someone who depended on others % person who was overly rational and una!le to manage emotions partnered with a person who was overly emotional and una!le to !e rational &n 1931 the first marital therapy paper was pu!lished Theory was marginali'ed, as no one was really conceptuali'ing marital therapy as much more than individual analysis with two people who happened to !e married to each other

Phase II 1931 to 1966 Psychoanalytic Experimentation

Therapists are seen as telling truth from distortion, rather than creating a truth (ne partner or the other must !e wrong, and helping them see that was the point of therapy )ost of the work was done in individual sessions, !ut some therapists experimented with con$oint sessions *owever, they still treated the work as individual therapy, and one partner simply o!served the analysis of the other partner for a little while each session +ome started to downplay the role of the therapist, and focused for the first time on helping the spouses !e ,therapeutic- with each other .amily therapy caught all the attention of therapists, and the marital therapy techni/ues weren0t innovative or particularly effective

Phase III 1963 to 1985 Family Therapy Incorporates Other Approaches

.amily therapy overpowers couples therapy, even though most of the famous family therapists mostly saw couples 1ackson coined concepts like /uid pro /uo, homeostasis, and dou!le !ind for couples therapy, and !egan looking at how systems processes happened $ust !etween the two people +atir coined naming the roles mem!ers played 2the soother, the agitator, the distractor34, fostered self5esteem and actuali'ation in couples 2and in families4, and saw the therapist more as a nurturing teacher who could help the couple continue what therapy started on their own 6owen !egan working on a multigenerational approach to family therapy, and included couples work in his practice *e focused on differentiation 2from the family, !ut also from each other in the couple4, triangulation 2within the family, !ut also as the couple sought others to !ecome involved in their conflicts4, and pro$ection processes The therapist was an anxiety5lowering coach who showed them how to calmly understand and accept each other0s anxieties and fears *e proposed a ,societal pro$ection process- or social scapegoating which & think was the forerunner of our modern awareness of cultural differences

*aley focused on power and control 2)adanes focused on love and connection4 as key to udnerstanding why people do what they do in complex systems *e avoided focusing on insight, emotional catharsis, and conscious power plays instead, he saw the system as more, and more important, than the sum of the parts 2or people that make up the system4

Phase IV 1986 to no !e"inin# an$ Inte#ratin#

1978 marked the pu!lication of 9urman and :niskern0s !ook summari'ing the research to date on couples therapy &t allowed for therapists to !egin to condense, test, refine, retest3 what we knew a!out couples and healthy relationships ;ew theories, like &ntegrative 6ehavioral <ouples Therapy, #motionally .ocused Therapy, and +olution5.ocused Therapy developed, and all have received good empirical support <ouples therapy was used to treat depression, anxiety, and alcoholism, either working with the couple, or working with the couple as a critical part of individual treatment in special clinics #fforts were focused on preventing couples pro!lems with programs like "=#" This marked a shift from understanding dysfunctional couples as partnerings of unhealthy people to understanding them as possi!ly healthy people under extreme stress through critical transition points in life .eminism, )ulticulturalism, and "ost5)odernism impacted the field as well, often showing us as a field that we were not as comprehensive, !road5minded, and free of !iases as we thought we were #clectic integration, !rief therapy, and sex therapy treatment developed as su!specialties of a sort, and were incorporated into larger theories