Couple and relationship education.

Abstract

David and Vera Mace often discussed the "three essentials of a couples' primary coping system": commitment, communication, and dealing with inevitable conflict and anger. Now we know how best to incorporate those skills in relationship education.-Bill Coffin, former marriage and relationship educator with the U.S. Navy and Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (personal communication, October 27, 2016) Couple relationship education (RE) teaches skills and principles associated with a stable, healthy relationship and marriage with the aim of improving or enhancing relationships and preventing future distress. Evidencebased RE draws upon the research on what influences couple relationship satisfaction and stability, and uses approaches to RE that have been evaluated in welldesigned research trials (Halford, Markman, & Stanley, 2008). In this chapter, we review the similarities and differences between RE and couple therapy; the history of RE; who accesses and who provides RE; the effects of evidence-based RE; issues facing the field; and a discussion of challenges, issues, and recommendations for future practice and research. Although we focus on more traditional couple approaches to RE, we also cover individual approaches as well, as they are growing rapidly. COUPLE RELATIONSHIP EDUCATION AND COUPLE THERAPYCouple RE is intended to improve and enrich couple relationships and help couples develop and sustain a healthy, mutually satisfying relationship (Markman & Ritchie, 2015). Evidence-based RE usually is brief, most commonly including a 12-to 14-hour curriculum that teaches key relationship knowledge and skills (Halford, 2011), although some programs have ranged up to 60 program hours (e.g., Wood et al., 2014) or have been as short as 2 hours Braithwaite, Lambert, Fincham, & Pasley, 2010;Tonelli, Pregulman, & Markman, 2016). Traditional RE usually has a relatively fixed curriculum and most often is provided in a multicouple group format (Markman & Ritchie, 2015), but it is also being offered over the Internet (Kalinka, Fincham, & Hirsch, 2012;Loew et al., 2012; www.lovetakeslearning.com). RE often is provided by people with training in the specific RE program they are offering, but who do not necessarily have training in couple therapy or other specialist psychol ogist skills. Evidence-based couple therapy is typically more extensive than RE, with evidencebased approaches typically involving 20 or more sessions of couple therapy (Christensen, Dimidjian,

Best Practices in Relationship Education Focused on Intimate Relationships

“…We will come back to the importance of the motivations of participants. We first provide a review of the research on the effectiveness of relationship education, wherein we describe current issues and advances while setting the stage for suggesting best practices (see also Cowan & Cowan, ; Markman, Halford, & Hawkins, ; Markman & Rhoades, ; Silliman, Stanley, Coffin, Markman, & Jordan, ).…”

Effects of relationship education on couple flourishing.

“…The present study was an uncontrolled trial, and it is not possible to attribute change to a specific effect of the RE. It is possible that much of the observed effects of RE are attributable to common factors like the couple committing to do something for their relationship, and having regular couple interactions, rather than specific elements of the RE programs (Markman et al, 2019). If there are program-specific effect of RE beyond common factors, it is unclear whether all evidence-based RE programs enhance couple flourishing, or that the effects on couple flourishing are specific to Couple CARE.…”

“…Couple Relationship Education (RE) is designed to enrich the relationships of couples, even if they are currently satisfied, in order to improve resilience to future stressors and maintain satisfaction over the longer term (Markman et al, 2019). Evidence-based RE generally consists of 12–18 hr of curriculum, including information provision on key issues such as developing realistic shared expectations, and skill development in key areas such as communication and problem-solving.…”

Teaching romantic competence skills to emerging adults: A relationship education workshop

“…This is important. Often, programs are targeted toward emerging adult college students in relationships (Braithwaite & Fincham, 2007, although there is growing recognition of the importance of providing relationship education to individuals not in a relationship (see Markman, Halford, & Hawkins, 2019), and some programs have done so (Cottle et al, 2014;Holt et al, 2016). Although the Simpson et al (2018) meta-analysis included studies of various research designs, there have been only three RCTs to date.…”