MARITAL PARADIGMS: COMPATIBILITY, TREATMENT, AND OUTCOME IN MARITAL THERAPY

Marital paradigms comprise the guiding images that serve as reference models for a couple's relationship. Such individualized images can be understood as variations on a small set of basic themes. An understanding of clients' marital paradigms can help foeus treatment on the most appropriategoals usingapproaches and techniques that are most effective for a particular couple. An unselected group of 103 couples seen in systems-oriented marital therapy were reviewed, to identify outcome and treatment issues as a function of marital paradigm. Based on outcome criteria that took marital paradigm into account, 92% of 38 cases where both partners identified with the same basic paradigm were judged to be treatment successes, while only 60% of the cases where the partners identified with different paradigms could be considered successful outcomes. Clinical approaches based on experience with marital therapy conducted within a paradigmatic framework are presented.