Affair Through Therapy

One of the largest reasons that couples in the US get divorced is because one member of the couple commits infidelity with an outside member. Infidelity includes being unfaithful to your spouse or leaving your spouse to be with another more desired partner (Amato & Previti, 2003). When it comes to infidelity, more often than not one spouse will cite the other as having been the offender than themselves (Austin Institute, 2014). Reports from the Austin Institute

The recovery model is very import to the field of marriage and family therapy in many different ways. Recovery allows for the client to change, and see unlimited possibility. This model is seen through the lens of values, seeking to help the client to live a rich and meaningful life. Recovery is strength based, and allows for the client to build from their personal skills set, and doesn’t blame a single person for the distress of the family. This allows for the client to gain a sense of self and self-worth, see their own values, and be able to create support within the family as well as their community.

Marriage and family therapists believe that the family patterns may affect an individual’s psychological and physical well being and therefore need to be part of therapy. During a therapy session even if only one person is being interviewed, the therapists focuses on a set of relationships that the person is embedded in. The entire family is involved in solving clients problems regardless of whether the issue in individual or family.

My father had an affair and had another child as a repercussion and he chose to leave my mom my sister and myself. If I were to be a social worker in a group that consisted of families and I learned that one member of the family had had an affair with an outside party it could resurface my own feelings of my past experiences if I do not work through and continue to work on self-understanding as it pertains to this area of my life. According to the example that Corey and Corey (2014) provide, such as the grief counselor, Nancy, by not addressing resurfaced feelings from past experiences it can leave us with feelings of depression, disinterest, and

Gottman couples therapy is an integrative approach that focuses on emotion, behavior, cognitive, and narrative approaches with in a systemic framework (Gottman & Gottman, 2013). This therapy is based on extensive research about how stable relationships work and how unstable relationships fail. The goal of Gottman therapy is to help couple process their inevitable fights, moments of miscommunication, or hurt feelings and to enable them to repair the relationship (Gottman & Gottman, 2013). Moreover, the goal is to “heal the wounds crated by regrettable incidents” (Gottman & Gottman, 2013, p. 95).

Each act of adultery can cause a different psychological effect on a human; portraying the causes of either an emotional or practical affair. The most common one is an emotional affair, because of the psychological impacts it brings towards our mental health. The

Local couples therapy is designed to focus on communication and trust issues. Even if your relationship is in decent shape already, this doesn't mean your relationship won't benefit from marriage counseling. After all, for the most important relationship in your life, your marriage, shouldn't you demand more than just okay? Read on to learn more about how Arkansas Relationship Counseling Center is helping couples just like you improve their marital relationship:

A PAPER SUBMITTED TO DR. JAMES D. GIBSON FULFILLMENT OF REQUIREMENTS FOR CO 5740 INTRODUCTION TO MARRIAGE AND FAMILY COUNSELING

Reed and Enright (2006) looked at emotional spousal abuse and using forgiveness therapy to help women overcome long-term negative outcomes associated

Emotionally focused therapy is designed to be short-term in structure. Developed principally by Dr. Susan Johnson, the main target of this type of therapy is couples and is focused on expressing emotions. The primary goal of emotionally focused therapy is to create a safe and long-lasting bond between romantic partners and family members while expanding and restructuring significant emotional responses. Partakers in emotionally focused therapy are emboldened to express their thoughts and emotions in a safe environment without fear of judgment. In this paper, we will discuss a therapy session between Sue Johnson and a couple, Leslie and Scott.

Marriage and Family Therapy is a brief solution-focused form of psychotherapy used to treat a wide array of problems ranging from depression and marital problems, to alcoholism and schizophrenia, in a couple and family system context. Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT) are trained and licensed mental health professionals who are capable of diagnosing and treating mental and emotional disorders whether cognitive, affective, or behavioral, within those systems. They are required to have a master’s or doctoral degree with specialized marriage and family therapy training. The American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) also requires MFT’s to have a minimum

The authors acknowledge various concerns of need of further study (see Reed & Enright, 2006, for discussion). Two concerns that stand out are the small sample and the limited ethnic diversity. Not addressed by the authors was the lack of research regarding males who experience, as recipients, spousal emotional abuse. There could be very different implications for males. It would be of interest whether forgiveness therapy would be as effective for males. In addition, even with follow-ups completed, it would be beneficial to have additional follow-ups at 5 and 10 years. This would allow more evidence of efficacy.

Infidelity is the action or state of being unfaithful to a spouse or other sexual partner. In evaluating the topic of ‘what psychological disorders do men vs. women deal with while going through infidelity,’ it is made distinctly clear that infidelity affect the two genders starkly different. It has been found through research that women widely understood in society to be more emotional, suffer from ‘anxiety and depression illnesses’ while men mainly suffer ‘anti-social disorders and disorders’ resulting from substance abuse.

In order for me to help this couple, I would need to figure out a few things. First, I would have to question the wife the reason why she thinks her husband is having an affair. Then after her response, I would ask the husband the same question as his explanation may different than hers. It is important to hear both sides of the stories, so they could both feel they have a “voice” in the session. It is important for each one of them to feel valued and respected, as the therapeutic relationship is being cultivated. However, before I start figuring out the facts, details, assumptions and perspective for each person, I would begin to build rapport with the couple by asking simple questions about themselves along with disclosing some information about myself as well. By spending at least 10-15 minutes of the beginning of the session will set the tone of who I am as a therapist/person, cultivate their trust and demonstrate the interest I have in helping them.

Due to the extremely sensitive nature of marital and family therapy, it is imperative that therapists engage in the ethical, competent treatment of their clients. There are three aspects of marriage and family therapy research that makes it unique from other research fields: 1) multiple family members are involved; 2) it involves extremely sensitive information; and 3) it is performed in conjunction with therapy. According to Hohmann-Marriott (2001), because of these aspects as well as the researcher’s responsibility to conduct