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Clinical Handbook of Couple Therapy, Fourth Edition ReviewIt was with a bit of nostalgia that I decided to read and review the Clinical Handbook of Couple Therapy: 4th edition, edited by Alan Gurman, Ph.D. Owing much of my current clinical interest in couple therapy to previous editions of this book read while in graduate school, I was eager to learn what the newest edition had in store. I was pleasantly surprised to find that rather than reading the same book with new chapters tacked to the end, each of the chapters in this edition have been significantly updated with the most current and clinically relevant research. This rather hefty 746 page volume is literally packed, cover to cover with the latest in theory and clinical practice of couple therapy with chapters authored by only the most prominent experts in the field. The book is divided in halves with subsections organizing common groups of chapters. The first half of the book is devoted to models of couple therapy and the second half focuses on applications of couple therapy with special populations, problems and issues in mind.It was immediately evident to me in Part I that Dr. Gurman had given the authors very specific instructions on how to structure each chapter. In Part I each chapter is written by authors who are expert at a specific orientation of couple therapy. Chapters are organized by Behavioral, Humanistic/Existential, Psychodynamic, Social Constructionist, Systemic, and Integrative Approaches. Each chapter addresses the historical underpinnings of the model, the theory of marital distress, specific structure of approaching therapy (i.e. assessment and technical intervention.) in addition to a case example. The end result was a perfect and well uniformed comparative study of every major approach to couple therapy that is being practiced today. I have yet to read a book that has done this quite so elegantly. I was particularly fascinated by each authors' description of what their conception of a "healthy/well-functioning vs. pathological/dysfunctional" marriage. It was a treat reading some of the most premier researchers and clinicians describe their approaches in such illuminating detail.
The behavioral approaches section opens with a richly detailed chapter by Baucom, Epstein and colleges discussing Cognitive Behavioral Couple Therapy. I particularly enjoyed the authors' discussion of the influence of social learning theory on this approach in addition to the attention paid to macro-level interactional transactions. The Humanistic-Existential Approaches subsection is crowned by a wonderful chapter by Dr. Susan Johnson describing Emotionally Focused Couple therapy. Her description of EFT as an open discussion between Carl Rogers, Ludwig von Bertalanffy and John Bowlby was well demonstrated in her chapter. Her cogent writing illustrating the deep influence of human attachment on the development and maintenance of marital distress forms the core of her approach. This chapter is followed by Dr's John and Julie Gottman describing their approach to couple therapy that is heavily steeped in the empirical data gathered over decades in Gottman's legendary observational laboratories. The other chapters in this section also do not disappoint and when read in succession one can see that these approaches although different in many ways, converge in some key areas, such as the emphasis on the formation of the therapeutic alliance and working with in-session enactments of problematic relational transactions.
Part II focuses on special applications and in this section one will find subsections organizing the chapters around rupture and repair of relational bonds, couple therapy and the treatment of psychiatric disorders, and couple therapy in the broader context. Every chapter in this section adds to and builds upon what has been written previously with very little redundancy; a quality that is difficult to find in large volumes with this many authors. I particularly enjoyed Dr's. Gordon, Baucom, Snyder and Dixon discuss their approach to the treatment of extramarital affairs. They present a very thoughtful rationale for understanding the process of recovery from affairs that is heavily informed by individual response to trauma (i.e. the emotional impact of the trauma, making meaning, and re-contextualizing the trauma). There is also an excellent chapter by Dr. Gottlieb and colleges on legal and ethical issues in couple therapy. It is a very comprehensive discussion of common ethical challenges and provides more than several common solutions, comparing and contrasting ways of responding to these challenges.
Overall, this book is well written but very dense. It is certainly not for the layman as the authors seem to be addressing both academics and clinicians who understand the importance of utilizing proven approaches that are backed by sound empirical data. The end product delivers an extremely comprehensive volume that is perfect for graduate students learning couple therapy as well as experienced clinicians looking for an "all-in-one" reference. For those who have previous editions, I think that there is enough new content in this book to take a second look at this edition.Clinical Handbook of Couple Therapy, Fourth Edition Overview
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