Do marital therapists do what they say they do? A comparison between experiential and communication couples therapy

Abstract

Differences in verbal behaviour of two experienced couple therapists (one experiential, one communicative) were studied in a videotaped intake session with the same couple (two professional actors, trained on a real case). For all verbal interventions the instrument utilized was the Pinsof Family Therapist Coding System. Results suggest that the communication therapist was more direct and his interventions were more directed towards the couple rather than towards the individual partners. At the same time many similarities were found between the two models.