Flipping the curve: Patterns of emotional communication in same-sex female couples before and after couple therapy.

Abstract

Distressed couples seeking therapy often engage in problematic patterns of communication, including emotional avoidance or rapid escalation of negative emotions. While couple therapy can alter couples' emotional communication, research to date has largely focused on different-sex, cisgender couples. Because same-sex couples have been understudied in couple therapy treatment research, particularly female, same-sex couples, it is unclear how couple therapy may alter their communication. This investigation examined couples' vocally expressed emotional arousal within conversations held before and after a novel couple therapy tailored for same-sex, cisgender female couples . At preand post-therapy, couples (N = 11) completed two recorded interactions. Emotional arousal was assessed using vocal fundamental frequency ( f 0 ). Multilevel growth curve models were used to estimate trajectories of f 0 across each pre-and post-therapy conversation. Findings indicate significant differences between the pre-and post-therapy f 0 trajectories. At pretherapy, couples' f 0 initially increased (indicating higher emotional arousal) but then decreased later in the conversation. At posttherapy, couples initially decreased in f 0 and then increased later in the conversation. Taken together, these findings suggest that, before therapy, couples may associate emotion with conflict and quickly minimize emotion after it initially escalates. After therapy, these couples may have learned how to better express and tolerate emotions when resolving conflict; therefore, the elevated arousal later in the conversation may be adaptive. These results point to the continued importance of understanding adaptive communication processes in diverse constellations of couples and how couple therapy facilitates changes.

Parent–child emotion dynamics in families presenting for behavioral parent training: Is there a link with child behavior, parenting, and treatment outcome?

“…Among adolescents, their range of f 0 during conflict discussions with parents is associated with higher levels of self-reported negative emotions and higher cortisol output (Baucom et al, 2012). f 0 and its regulation during family interactions has also been studied in the intervention context, primarily with couples (e.g., Baucom et al, 2015; Fischer et al, 2023; Weber et al, 2022). This work suggests that it is not necessarily higher or lower emotional arousal that is important, but that its effects are dependent upon the context (e.g., conversation topic) and how emotion dynamics unfold across the interaction (e.g., Fischer et al, 2015; Weber et al, 2022).…”

“…f 0 and its regulation during family interactions has also been studied in the intervention context, primarily with couples (e.g., Baucom et al, 2015; Fischer et al, 2023; Weber et al, 2022). This work suggests that it is not necessarily higher or lower emotional arousal that is important, but that its effects are dependent upon the context (e.g., conversation topic) and how emotion dynamics unfold across the interaction (e.g., Fischer et al, 2015; Weber et al, 2022). With regard to the parent–child interactions, research on f 0 has focused on characterizing prosody per se (e.g., examining how prosodic features are modulated during infant-directed speech) and only rarely conducted in the context of treatment.…”