Affective Behavior in Parent Couples Undergoing Couple Therapy: Contrasting Case Studies

Abstract

Being in a romantic relationship is characterized by a high degree of intimacy and affective involvement. Affective behavior indicates the emotional content in couple interactions and therefore promotes an understanding of the evolution of romantic relationships. When couples are also parents, their affective behavior reflects their romantic and coparental bonds. In this paper, we present an observation of parent couples’ affective behavior during a coparenting conflict discussion task to document whether and how much it improved during couple therapy. Two contrasting cases of affective behavior change are included. Observational coding of affective behavior within pre- and post-intervention coparenting conflict discussion tasks was carried out to compute means and CIs for each partner in both cases. In addition, the partners’ coparental and romantic satisfaction were evaluated through validated self-report questionnaires in pre- and post-intervention assessments; this helped document whether the partners’ coparental and romantic satisfaction were dissimilar between the two cases. Finally, a clinical analysis of both cases was realized with the contribution of the therapists to investigate possible differences within therapy sessions. Statistical analyses revealed negative means of affective behavior for couple A in the pre-intervention assessment and positive means in the post-intervention assessment. Partners from couple B had negative means of affective behavior in the pre- and post-intervention assessments. Results concerning coparental and romantic satisfaction differed: Couple A’s coparental satisfaction slightly increased and the romantic satisfaction somewhat decreased, whereas couple B’s coparental satisfaction remained stable and the romantic satisfaction slightly increased between the pre- and post-intervention assessments. The clinical analysis revealed that the interactional quality of couple A slightly improved within therapy sessions and that both partners succeeded in working together as coparents, notwithstanding their romantic distress. Couple B conveyed coparental distress and exhibited poor interactional quality throughout therapy sessions (e.g., repeated criticism and contempt). This study contributes to enriching the more traditional empirical research methods in the field of couple psychotherapy, as it takes into account microlevel affective changes within parent couples’ interactions in addition to self-reported data. Furthermore, the analysis of therapy sessions supports the importance of working with affective behavior in couple therapy.

Parents in couple therapy: An intervention targeting marital and coparenting relationships

“…In this trial a total of 101 couples living together and parenting a child under the age of 16 were recruited. The couples completed several self‐report questionnaires on individual and relationship variables, and participated in videotaped discussions, before and after treatment and at follow‐ups (Liekmeier et al, 2021). Preliminary data were obtained through a process study of six IBSI therapy cases (Eira Nunes, Pascual‐Leone, et al, 2021) using the task analysis method (Task Analysis Method, Pascual‐Leone et al, 2014).…”

Coparenting change after couple therapy using self‐reports and observational data

“…These measures enable us to collect information on someone's perceptions, but they are prone to possible social desirability or memory bias, and they cannot fully investigate the complexity of dyadic interaction in general and specifically related coparenting (Friedlander et al, 2019). Observational measurements make it possible to apprehend specific and unique dynamics of couples' interactions in addition to data gathered through self-report measures, as they produce direct data on couple interactions (Liekmeier et al, 2021). It is important to include observational measurement when studying couple functioning, especially in couple therapy, as the observation of couples' interactions constitutes a robust indicator of couple functioning (Heyman, 2001) and it gives access to clinically significant indicators of which the partners may not directly be aware of (Imesch et al, 2019).…”