Motivating Couples for Therapy

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Marital dissatisfaction is a significant problem, with repercussions for mental, physical, and family health, and associations with outcomes such as divorce and spousal abuse. Approximately 20% of couples in the general population experience clinical levels of marital dissatisfaction at a given time. There are effective treatments for couple dissatisfaction; however, many couples who might benefit from treatment do not receive it. I propose to develop and test a brief intervention (marital motivational interviewing; MMI) designed to increase couples' motivation for, and actual use of, couples resources in the community (i.e., marital therapy). MMI will be targeted at distressed couples who are not currently receiving treatment for marital dissatisfaction. In developing MMI, I will integrate existing literature on marital discord with strategies used in motivational interviewing interventions. In the first 6 months of the fellowship, I will develop and manualize the intervention. In the remaining 18 months of the fellowship, I will conduct a pilot randomized clinical trial, comparing a group receiving MMI to a wait- list control group. Three months following the intervention, I expect that the MMI group will show a) increased motivation for making changes in their relationship; b) increased relationship efficacy (i.e., the belief that one and one's partner can solve future relationship problems) and c) increased use of couples therapy.