The Couple's Reflecting Team: How Spoken and Written Reflections, Gender, and Stage of Therapy Impact Perceived Helpfulness

Abstract

We investigated the addition of written reflections to a reflecting team format for couples who requested an initial evaluation or a consultation to an ongoing stuck therapy situation. The 17 couples who participated found the interview, spoken reflections, and written reflections all helpful. Men seemed to get more out of the letters than did women. In addition, in the letter format, they seemed to find suggestions for experiments to try at home more helpful than did women. Overall, men and women were more receptive to defining their relationship in dyadic terms when they read written reflections compared to hearing verbal reflections. Couples who came for an initial interview found the interview and written reflections more helpful than did couples who were in a stuck therapy situation. Our findings offer support for the addition of a letter to the couple's reflecting team consultation. Further, results highlight the importance of considering gender differences in the impact of verbal and written reflections and suggest that the reflecting team can be helpful to both couples initiating therapy and those in ongoing couple therapy.

KEYWORDS:

• reflecting team
• letters
• consultation
• gender differences
• couple therapy

The authors wish to thank the following reflecting team members who contributed their clinical insights and research ideas for this study: Travis Adams, PhD; Julia Coleman, MD; Pat Giulino, LICSW; Rebecca Harley, PhD; Marie Herbert, LICSW; Jeanne McKeon, PhD; Carol McSheffrey, LICSW; Siobhan, O'Neill, MD; Lisa Price, MD; Jan Schroedel, LICSW; Virginia Sigel, LICSW; and James Tobin, PhD.

Notes

**p < .01.