2005/01/01 by Laurie Heatherington, Myrna L. Friedlander, Leslie S. Greenberg · 99 citations
Psychology · #Attachment and Relationship Dynamics #Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications #Counseling, Therapy, and Family Dynamics #Psychology #Intrapersonal communication #Covert #Family therapy #Process (computing) #Alliance #Theory of change #Psychotherapist #Cognition #Focus (optics) #Social psychology #Interpersonal communication #Sociology
paper · doi:10.1037/0893-3200.19.1.18
published in Journal of Family Psychology 19(1), 18-27 (American Psychological Association)
openalex publication_date 2005/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/15
In our field, the study of therapeutic change processes lags behind the study of treatment efficacy. Nonetheless, in the past 10 years major strides have been made in delineating change process mechanisms in couple and family therapy. To focus the efforts of future change process researchers, the authors discuss 5 critical needs: (a) more well-articulated, midrange theory about systemic change processes; (b) more attention to client change processes; (c) more attention to covert intrapersonal processes (emotion, cognition, and clients' experience of the alliance); (d) better articulation of strategies for analyzing data from multiple participants; and (e) more focus on the degree to which various change processes work similarly (or not) for diverse couples and families.