The Family Therapy Model in One Couple’s Case

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Introduction

The Gottman Couples Therapy (GCT), as a scientifically supported method of counseling, helps partners gain a deeper insight into their partnership and commitment in order to foster intimacy. Couple therapy assistance can be used to overcome the inherent defensive barriers that prevent partners from finding and communicating their true selves. The Sound Relationship House Theory (SRHT) identifies nine elements of a good relationship. By reducing the hurdles that make a marriage seem stagnant, the couple may build intimacy and affection. In this case, the couples’ marital hurdles can be eliminated through verbal communication (Sanford, 2010). By recognizing their spouse’s spoken and non-spoken cues, the partners may improve their compassion and knowledge of the intricacies of their partnership. As per Rajaei (2019), functional relational communication is based on both verbal and nonverbal communication skills. Intimacy will rise in a relationship when people correctly share their feelings, worries, and aspirations.

Experience of Using the Two Assessment Instruments

The two assessment instruments evaluate the connection between active therapies and relapse prevention measures. They count and emphasize two different methods for a successful appraisal: mental health and experience of agreements or disagreements. The compatibility of each pair was assessed to gauge the potency of their combined understanding, companionship, and conflict resolution systems. The interventions decided upon throughout each session are solely dependent on the emotional issues the couple raised during the session. According to Garanzini (2017), the assessments are experiential and emotionally driven. To aid in the healing process, the approach fosters certain social skills by utilizing organized relationship therapy patterns (Whisman et al., 2009). Moreover, it emphasizes maintaining and cultivating physiological serenity as well as the existential facets of a committed partnership.

Presenting Issues and Treatment Goals

The cultural variance between Canoor and Yuan is opposed by their families. They are quite uncomfortable with one another as a result of this. Owing to their distinct socioeconomic levels, and cultural origins, their families are worried for their children’s upbringing. The primary problem that Cannor and Yuan are facing is cultural differences. Yuan sees Connor as fervently isolated, anxious at times, and not sleeping well, yet both families do not value the other different cultural norms. For instance, Yuan’s parents were originally not very reassured of Yuan marrying a white American, and are concerned about Yuan, Ning, and Lee losing touch with Chinese ethnic customs and ideals. On the other hand, Connor’s parents, Sean and Shannon, like Yuan a lot, but are occasionally apprehensive of Cheng and Xiaoli being inflexible and arduous when it comes to Chinese customs.

The treatment objective with regards to Cannor and Carmen involves: To discover how to change and acclimate the two familial structures, and cultural norms, as a married couple. Notably, the goal of Gottman’s ideology is to strengthen the bond and structure of the marriage, not the entire family (Garanzini, 2017). As such, the therapy should focus on enhancing the couples’ optimism in order to improve their compatibility. This method offers a non-pathologic outlook that encourages couples to discover their strengths to build their connection and address issues, which will lead to a positive realignment (Davoodvandi, 2018). The pair can, therefore, reorient their attention away from what the parents expect from their marriage and toward what they both need for a happy union.

As a therapist, the counseling should start with each psychoanalysis hour addressing the issues and feelings that the couple presents, and use their emotional state to strengthen the bond between the partners in the framework of a compassionate and receptive therapeutic alliance. In this case, the couples would comprehend that even the strongest relationships eventually deteriorate without proper care (Whisman et al., 2009). According to Gottman, creating a ritual of connections by promoting shared life roles and ambitions develops common meaning (as cited in Gurman et al., 2015). As such, recognizing and reworking the couple’s mutual need for distinction is the aim of the plan.

Additional Questions for Couple Counseling and Objective Plan

To understand the case study from Cannor and Yuan, additional questions are required. In this case, a plan was created that involved brainstorming to establish the required comments or interview questions for the couples. The GCT questionnaire was used as it provided further insight into how the couple would overcome the barriers of diversity to encourage greater inclusiveness and compromise within their relationship complexities. The questions include:

What were the first three things about Yuan that drew you in?
What were the first three things about Cannor that drew you in?
What is something Cannor has always desired to ask Yuan but has never done?
Yuan, what have you ever wanted to ask Cannor since but have not?
What can you recall about the moment you found love?
How do you feel about Yuan’s parents expecting your children to inherit Chinese cultural heritage?
How do you feel about Cannor’s parents feeling about your parents being rigid on the issue of Chinese culture?
What virtues can aid in overcoming challenges posed by cultural diversity?
Is there a resolution that both family members might accept?
How else will you overcome this obstacle if your parents continue to be against this marital relationship because of cultural diversity?

The Brief Dyadic Adjustment Scale

A 7-item questionnaire known as the Brief Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS) evaluates the experiences of disagreements in a relationship. They include; affection, philosophy of life, and sexual relations. The original DAS has four subscales and 32 items and the total score signifies a general measure of the partner’s alteration; where a.88 indicates reliability with a high convergent validity. The range in the total scores is 0-36, with scores below 21 indicating distress (The Couple and Family Assessment Resource Folder, n.d.). In the case of Yuan, the relationship disagreement score resulted in 20/36, which is below the 21 standard score; hence, distress. However, Cannor scored a “close to perfect” marriage life with a score of 30. Hence, on his part, the relationship was in the right direction. Based on the above tests, the instrument possessed face reliability as the questions required addition and subtraction of integers; hence, a good face validity.

The DAS was completed, and the findings showed imbalanced happiness in every aspect of the relationship. For instance, the philosophy of life was occasionally agreed upon by the couples as demonstrated by Yuan despite fairly agreeing on such issues as sexual relations and demonstration of affection. This evaluation, therefore, appropriately captures the nature of the present relationship connection. However, it was challenging during the process of taking the instruments since some instructions were not clear. For example, it was difficult to gauge sexual relations as a perfect score since the partners are mostly separate based on Cannor’s work relations. As a measure of relationship satisfaction, the instrument had a modest agreement with a structured diagnostic interview. For instance, the questionnaires over-diagnosed unhappiness compared to sexual gratification solutions. Consequently, the results for partner sexual life reiterated the need to transcend the occurrence of unhappiness as the sole diagnostic criterion.

MHI-5 Mental Health Inventory

The 5-items on the Mental Health Inventory (MHI) items explicitly address how the feelings people experience. The first two items, items 1 and 2, measure the positive connections or what determines the quality of life; happiness and calm and peacefulness. On the other hand, the preceding items 3, 4, and 5 measure the negative virtues of mental health experiences. They include such experiences as nervous, downhearted, and blue, and feeling of so down or low that nothing could cheer them up.

For each question, Cannor and Yuan were requested to indicate the occurrence with which each item had occurred (1 = always to 6 = never), with higher scores demonstrating stronger mental health/less emotional distress. For the first two items inquiring about positive feelings, scoring is reversed (1=6, 2=5, 3=4, 4=3, 5=2, 6=1). Cronbach’s alpha reliability for the MHI-5 is 0.75, and a total score of 22 or higher on the MHI-5 suggests a likely diagnosis of depression or anxiety (The Couple and Family Assessment Resource Folder, n.d.). In this case, Cannor scored 18/30 signifying a lack of distress or anxiety on his part. Interestingly, Yuan also scored 21/30 suggesting an unlikely diagnosis of depression or anxiety.

Diversity

Due to the cultural differences between Cannor and Yuan and their heredity emanating from their childhood growth, either spouse might be insensitive to the other’s culture. Every member of the partnership and the therapist must comprehend that not appreciating or comprehending each other’s fundamental views is damaging. Therapists need to be careful not to influence their patients with their own ideas and habits. The beliefs, presumptions, and prejudices of their own ethnic groups as well as those of other cultural groups must be recognized by the therapists (Shepherd et al., 2019). The psychotherapist works to apprehend how the above core items and factors affect their ability to provide culturally beneficial services to clients.

Reliability and Validity

The concerns raised in the earlier evaluations were addressed using the Gottman approach for Cannor and Yuan. Through the DAS, the Gottman approach enables couples to increase their intimacy and enhance their commitment. This improved the technique’s validity and dependability; hence, relevance and utility are obtained within the assessment device used. During the tests, it was established that individuals concentrate on the crucial points of the issue areas by identifying the couple’s strengths and shortcomings by measuring one’s actions using the DAS and the MHI-5.

Code of Ethics Concerning Assessments

Based on the Code of Ethics Standards, and as prospective marriage and family therapists, we are required to observe specific ethical principles. The Marriage and Family Therapy Code of Ethics, standard II, states that it is a basic ethical infraction to violate a client’s privacy and confidentiality during a closed session when it has not been disclosed to the spouse. The therapist values and protects each client’s competence on an individual basis. According to the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT, n.d.), a lack of knowledge of or ignorance of an ethical principle is not a defense to being accused of unethical behavior.

Conclusion

In order to begin personalized treatments using a logical paradigm, the ethical implementation of treatment modalities makes an attempt to precisely identify concerns at the onset of the session. This is the ideal scenario, and it calls for the client and therapist to feel validated to actively engage in outlining issues and objectives as they proceed through treatment (Reynolds, 2022). Due to the unexpected nature of therapy, the method enables the treatment plan to be an evolving documentation that encourages modifications.

References

American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. (n.d.). Code of ethics. Web.

The Couple and Family Assessment Resource Folder. (n.d.). Web.

Davoodvandi, M., Navabi Nejad, S., & Farzad, V. (2018). Examining the effectiveness of Gottman Couple Therapy on improving marital adjustment and couples’ intimacy. Iranian Journal of Psychiatry, 13(2), 135–141. Web.

Garanzini, S., Yee, A., Gottman, J., Gottman, J., Cole, C., Preciado, M., & Jasculca, C. (2017). Results of Gottman method couples therapy with gay and lesbian couples. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 43(4), 674-684. Web.

Gurman, A. S., Lebow, J. L., & Snyder, D. K. (Eds.). (2015). (5th ed.). Clinical handbook of couple therapy. Guilford Publications.

Rajaei, A., Daneshpour, M., & Robertson, J. (2019). The effectiveness of couples therapy based on the Gottman method among Iranian couples with conflicts: A quasi-experimental study. Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy, 18(3), 223- 240. Web.

Reynolds, A. (2022). Therapy as a journey: Using process-oriented treatment planning. The Gottman Institute. Web.

Sanford, K. (2010). Assessing conflict communication in couples: Comparing the validity of self-report, partner-report, and observer ratings. Journal of Family Psychology, 24(2), 165-174. Web.

Shepherd, S. M., Willis-Esqueda, C., Newton, D., Sivasubramaniam, D., & Paradies, Y. (2019). The challenge of cultural competence in the workplace: perspectives of healthcare providers. BMC Health Services Research, 19(1), 1-11. Web.

Whisman, M. A., Snyder, D. K., & Beach, S. R. (2009). Screening for marital and relationship discord. Journal of Family Psychology, 23(2), 247-254. Web.

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