The therapeutic alliance including the therapist's intersubjectivity has proven important in psychotherapy. In dance and movement therapy and couple dancing non-verbal interaction is central, though not high-lighted in verbal psychotherapy. This study explores facilitators of interaction of couple dancing and transfer those to the therapeutic alliance. Interviews with couple dancers were analyzed according to qualitative content analysis and interpreted using attachment and intersubjectivity theory. The results indicate that facilitators of interaction are psychological maturity, intersubjective matching and mindful presence; furthermore, that an agreement is needed but affected by the social context. Implementation of such components in verbal therapy may benefit the therapeutic alliance. It could be done by considering the therapists’ attachment pattern and matching the patient´s one non-verbally. The author concludes that psychological development and intersubjective skills should be considered in psychotherapist training, possibly through practice with tape recording and techniques from the creative and meditative domains.

Dropout is a problematic phenomenon which wastes community, clinician, client, and researcher resources. Clients who dropout from therapy end up the same, or worse than, those who did not seek out therapy at all. While there is a relatively deep and broad understanding of dropout from individual therapy, an exhaustive review of couple therapy dropout literature reveals a very inconsistent and non-conclusive body of research. This may stem from a lack of a consistently used theory to guide research endeavors in this important realm. Primarily, this seems to stem from treating dropout as a static event rather than a process occurring across time. This study seeks to remedy this and shed new light on dropout from couple therapy by using a growth mixture model analysis to tease out which trajectories of change of predictor variables across time are more likely to predict dropout from couple therapy. While the results of this study did not reveal any significant relationships between class membership and dropout (likely due to a too small sample size), the study did find that there were distinct classes (trajectories of change) among the predictor variables across time.

Despite the strong efficacy of couple therapy, many couples still do not benefit from treatment. Marriage and family therapy scholars have argued that therapists play a crucial role in the delivery of successful couple therapy, yet little research has documented that the therapist in couple therapy has a significant impact on outcomes. Known as the study of therapist effects, this study sought to assess the amount of variance attributed to the therapist in couple therapy outcomes. Using dropout as the outcome variable, this study analyzed data from 1192 couples treated by 90 therapists at a university-based training clinic. Results from multilevel analysis indicated that therapists in the sample accounted for 9.5% of the variance in couple dropout while controlling for initial couple impairment. Therapist gender and therapist experience did not significantly predict the effectiveness of therapists. These findings give promise to future research on therapist effects in couple therapy and encourage exploration into which therapist characteristics and behaviors contribute to successful clinical outcomes.

Recent literature in couple therapy has demonstrated the effects of physical health on some common presenting problems; however, few studies have considered progress as a construct on its own, irrespective of client-identified presenting problem. The current study used an Actor-Partner Interdependence Mediated Model to determine the connection between each partner's physical health and their own and their partner's self-reported progress in couple therapy, mediated by each partner's emotional regulation. Physical health was measured every four sessions using the Health-Related Quality of Life scale, and progress was measured by the Presenting Problem Progress Questionnaire given each time a couple attended therapy. Emotional regulation was measured by the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation scale. The research questions asked whether healthier people and/or their partners would be more emotionally regulated and therefore experience more progress. Results indicated a significant predictive relationship between individual health and presenting problem progress for males and females; however, neither association was mediated by emotional regulation. Additional results suggested that health may predict emotional regulation for both male and female clients, with female health also predicting variation in male emotional regulation. Clinicians are encouraged to consider client health as a predictor of emotional regulation and create treatment goals that facilitate improvements to client health.

Au cours de ces deux dernières décennies, les étudiants internationaux ont été l’objet d’études de nombreuses recherches (Bureau canadien de l’éducation internationale, 2017 ; Chatel-De Repentigny, Montmarquette & Vaillancourt, 2011 ; Hou & Lu, 2017 ; Williams, Williams, & Abuckle, 2015, Fortier, 2007 ; Maïnich, 2015 ; Millet, 2000 ; Terrier, 2009 b, 2009a ; Vultur & Germain, 2018). L’intérêt porté sur les étudiants internationaux a été sans appel tant que leur population en mobilité continuait d’augmenter depuis 2010 en atteignant 2 millions en 2017 (UNESCO, 2020) dans les différents pays de l’OCDE. Dans le cas du Canada, ils représentent depuis 2017, 14 % de la population estudiantine du pays soit 296 469 personnes (Statistique Canada, 2020) et leur contribution en termes de PIB représentait respectivement 10,5 milliards de dollars en 2015 et en 12,8 milliards de dollars en 2016 (Affaires mondiales du Canada, 2017). Pourtant, derrière ces variables statistiques fort intéressantes, il y a des individus en déplacement, des hommes, des femmes, et parfois des enfants qui accompagnent leurs familles. Ce sont aussi des projets de vie, de couple et de famille. Cette thèse s’intéresse donc à la dimension familiale et conjugale des étudiants internationaux en prenant appui sur la loi de l’immigration de 2014 autorisant les étudiants internationaux à faire une demande de permis de travail ouvert pour leurs conjoints et conjointes. Cette thèse analyse donc le rapport qui résulte de la différenciation des permis au sein du couple (permis d’étude pour l’étudiant et permis de travail pour la conjointe) en partant des cas des étudiants internationaux haïtiens au Canada non boursier et de leurs conjointes. Nous avons pu appréhender notre objet d’étude en mettant en relation la sociologie de l’immigration dans la perspective d’A. Sayad (1999) et de la sociologie des rapports de sexe en empruntant la grille de consubstantialité des rapports sociaux (Kergoat, 2009). À la suite des analyses des récits biographiques, ce travail a pu mettre en évidence comment les rôles sociaux de sexes ont tendance à se redessiner au sein du couple d’étudiants internationaux haïtien. En raison du fait que, les femmes, les conjointes détenant les permis de travail parviennent à prendre la charge économique du foyer conjugal dans le contexte canadien à l’opposé du contexte haïtien où les hommes jouaient ce rôle. La thèse apporte aussi des éclairages sur la prise de décision quant au projet d’étude et aux projets migratoires en démontrant que dans la majorité des cas, ce sont les projets des conjoints (les étudiants) qui passent en premier plan au détriment des projets des conjointes. Même si toutefois, il y a dans plusieurs cas, une négociation, un arrangement qui se fait en vue de l’obtention de la résidence permanente qui aboutit au projet de mobilité du couple. Ce travail permet de mettre en évidence également la situation de déclassement et de discrimination auxquels font face les étudiants et leur conjointe au Canada.

While a growing body of literature in the field of criminal justice documents the relationship between victimization and offending, only recently has this knowledge been applied to the study of intimate partner violence (IPV). Accordingly, questions remain with regard to the theoretical origins of mutual violence between intimates. In an effort to fill this void in the literature, the current study examines the etiology of moderate forms of mutual IPV, specifically assessing self-control theory's applicability to the victim-offender overlap in IPV. Data were obtained from Waves I and IV of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) to investigate whether low self-control at Wave I predicts IPV victimization, IPV offending, or both IPV victimization and offending at Wave IV. The present study extends prior literature examining the role of self-control in IPV by (1) investigating the influence of self-control on the victim-offender overlap in IPV, (2) using longitudinal data, and (3) utilizing a sample of U.S. adults ages 24 to 33. While low self-control was found to significantly predict IPV offending and the overlap in IPV victimization and offending, low self-control failed to significantly predict IPV victimization. Policy implications, study limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.

The therapeutic alliance is a core element of successful treatment in therapy. Recent literature has explored variables that predict the alliance at various time points during therapy, but few studies have explored how the alliance develops over time and the factors that influence its rate of change. The current study addresses these questions by estimating latent growth-curve models to analyze how male and female partners' alliance scores develop over time and how adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) impact the development of the alliance during the first six sessions of therapy. Results from these analyses show that neither men nor women's ACEs had a significant effect on the rate of change in the alliance. A discussion of the attachment implications of these findings, as well as the limitations of this study and potential directions for future research are then presented.

En la presente investigación se analizaron las modalidades de contacto presencial y virtual en el desarrollo de vínculo de pareja en la sociedad limeña, con esta finalidad se empleó el modelo teórico de Diaz-Loving para describir la etapa en donde cada participante se encontraba. Se utilizó el método cualitativo, con un diseño fenomenológico; los participantes pertenecían al grupo etario de 19 a 26 años y el instrumento de recolección de información fue la entrevista semiestructurada. Los resultados fueron agrupados en tres categorías: el desarrollo inicial del vínculo, la conquista y el compromiso en la pareja, y la reestructuración del vínculo de pareja. Finalmente, el análisis concluyó que la modalidad de contacto virtual va a intentar aproximarse cada vez más a la modalidad presencial para lograr, dentro de lo posible, que no exista ninguna diferencia en el desarrollo del vínculo entre ambas modalidades. / In the present investigation, the modalities of face-to-face and virtual contact in the development of a relationship in Lima society were analyzed, with this purpose the theoretical Diaz-Loving model was used to describe the stage where each participant was. The qualitative method was used, with a phenomenological design; the participants belonged to the age group from 19 to 26 years old and the information gathering instrument was the semi-structured interview. The results were grouped into three categories: the initial development of the bond, the conquest and commitment in the couple, and the restructuring of the couple bond. Finally, the analysis concluded that the virtual contact modality will try to get closer and closer to the face-to-face modality to achieve, as far as possible, that there is no difference in the development of the bond between both modalities. / Tesis

Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) Extension faculty members are increasingly involved in offering couple and relationship education (CRE), but some have limited background in this format of family life education. This study used a phenomological approach to examine the experiences of Extension faculty members who offered CRE in their respective counties for their first time. Data were collected through face-to-face and telephone interviews. Four themes emerged from the interview data. First, considerations for offering this type of education included valuing CRE, having sufficient and specific knowledge about the needs of the county for CRE, and access to other forms of resources (mentors, previous training, or funding). Second, successes were discussed in terms of creating positive partnerships, successful recruitment strategies, and resources (utilization of funds and getting trained in CRE for the event). Third, faculty members described challenges including a lack of partnerships, limited resources, recruitment struggles, and lack of sufficient funds. Fourth, the reflections from the faculty members included plans and changes for future programming as faculty members reflected back on their actual experiences. These findings provide guidance for Extension faculty members with limited experience who are interested in offering CRE.

Researchers have begun to utilize advances in technology to complement self-reports in an effort to understand intrapersonal and interpersonal factors that are involved in conflict. The objective of this study was to use skin conductance to measure physiological arousal during and after couple conflict to provide clarity to the association between attachment styles, physiological reactivity to conflict, and recovery from couple conflict. Ten couples (n = 20) were connected to skin conductance equipment while engaging in a 10-minute conflict task, and a distraction task and discussion that was used to represent recovery from conflict. The t-tests results showed that the difference from baseline scores for gender and attachment styles were not significant. Bivariate correlation analysis was used for descriptive variables and attachment and physiological arousal. Multiple regressions were used to analyze skin conductance difference scores with attachment avoidance and anxiety. Results showed that attachment anxiety was associated with greater physiological reactivity during the conflict and recovery portions of the study. These findings are the first to link attachment anxiety and physiological reactivity with the use of skin conductance as a measure of physiological arousal. The results from the multiple regressions for avoidant attachment were not significant. The implications for the study include a methodology for future researchers to follow to study attachment, conflict, and recovery from conflict. Clinical implications are also present in that the study highlights the importance of assessing for attachment styles when working with couples to better understand physiological reactions during and after conflict, and emphasizes the utility of biofeedback devices to facilitate emotional regulation. Research implications are also discussed.