The Silencing the Self model of depression (Jack, 1991) proposes that women are at risk for depression when they suppress their true thoughts and feelings to avoid conflict. Using a community sample of 115 couples, the present study investigated whether self-silencing mediates the relationship between marital conflict and depressive symptoms. Results indicated that both men and women who perceived their marriages as conflicted tended to hide their anger while pretending to go along with their partner's opinions or wishes which, along with a tendency to judge oneself by external standards, also mediated the relationship between marital conflict and depressive symptoms. The silencing model appears to describe the development of both men's and women's depression in conflicted marriages and may be refined by focusing on how individuals cope with anger in intimate relationships.

This mixed method systematic case study applied an interpersonal stage model of the therapeutic process to examine interpersonal processes among a highly adherent Group Psychodynamic-Interpersonal Psychotherapy (GPIP) therapist and a highly adherent Group Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (GCBT) therapist and their groups of binge eating disordered (BED) patients. This is the first case study to apply the interpersonal stage model of psychotherapy to compare GCBT and GPIP methods and the first to apply the model to group therapy. Early-, middle-, and late-stage transcribed video recordings of sequential interactions among therapists and patients in each of these two time-limited group therapies were analyzed with the Structural Analysis of Social Behavior (SASB). We also provide qualitative presentations of the transcripts from each stage as context for the quantitative analyses. BED patients in both groups achieved positive outcomes for binge eating and depression. Consistent with their treatment model, the GPIP therapist was more autonomy-giving, whereas the GCBT therapist was more controlling/directive. The GPIP therapist and her group had high levels of interpersonal complementary interaction sequences in the early stage followed by lower complementarity in the middle stage. The GCBT therapist and her group showed a high-low-high pattern of complementarity across the three stage of therapy. However, overall the GPIP group had higher levels complementarity than the GCBT group. This mixed method case study of group processes based on an interpersonal stage model of psychotherapy suggested specific therapist behaviors in each modality to maximize positive therapeutic interactions at each stage of group therapy.

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