Introducing the Expectations and Preference Scales for Couple Therapy (EPSCT): Development, Psychometric Evaluation, and Suggested Use in Practice and Research

Abstract

While it is known that client factors account for the largest proportion of outcome variance across treatment modalities, little is known about how clients’ characteristics affect the process and effectiveness of couple therapy. To further knowledge in this area, we created a brief, practice‐friendly measure, the Expectation and Preference Scales for Couple Therapy (EPSCT). Three self‐report scales assess clients’ Outcome expectations (e.g., I expect our relationship to improve as a result of couple therapy) and role expectations for Self (e.g., I expect to listen to my partner's concerns) and Partner (e.g., I expect my partner to blame me). Three Cognitive‐Behavioral, Emotionally Focused, and Family Systems preference scales use a forced‐choice format to measure the comparative strength of respondents’ preferences for interventions broadly reflective of each approach. A large item pool was developed from relevant literature and clinical experience and refined based on face and content analyses with two panels of experienced couple therapists and researchers. Across four studies with 1,175 participants, the scales’ internal consistency reliabilities were similar and their construct validity was supported with confirmatory factor analyses and significant correlations with several established measures, including expectation measures developed for individual psychotherapy and measures of attitudes toward professional help seeking and valuing personal growth. Across all studies, participants had stronger role expectations for themselves than their partners, although gender effects differed by sample. We discuss how to use the 15‐item EPSCT in clinical practice and in future research as a predictor of couple therapy processes and outcomes.

Relations between attachment insecurity and role and outcome expectations for couple therapy

“…(2019), EPSCT scores did not differ significantly by gender or relationship status (married vs. committed). Participants’ responses to the Couple Satisfaction Index‐4 (Funk and Rogge, 2007) showed positive correlations with expectations for Self ( r = .26, p < .001) and Outcome ( r = .29, p < .0001), but not with expectations for Partner (Friedlander et al ., 2019).…”

“…To determine whether the structural validity of the 9‐item expectation scales in the present sample was consistent with the factor structure reported in two other development studies of the EPSCT (Friedlander et al ., 2019), we conducted a three‐factor confirmatory factor analysis using maximum likelihood estimation in Mplus (Muthén and Muthén, 2007). Results indicated good model fit: χ 2 (24) = 25.24, p > .05; CFI = .99; TLI = .99; RMSEA = .02, 90% CI: [.00, .07]; SRMR = .04.…”

“…The potency of clients’ expectations has long been recognised. Until the recent development of the Expectation and Preference Scales for Couple Therapy (Friedlander et al ., 2019), however, there had been no research on predictors of clients’ expectations for couples work or on the consequences. In the EPSCT development studies, the authors found significant associations between expectations and individuals’ views on help‐seeking, personal growth, and the status of their romantic relationships.…”

“…The three expectation scales in the Expectation and Preference Scales for Couple Therapy (EPSCT; Friedlander et al ., 2019) are Self (three items, e.g. ‘I expect to bring up my concerns for discussion’), Partner (three items; e.g.…”

“…Developing a measure of couple therapy expectations based in part on the themes that emerged from Tambling and colleagues’ (2010, 2014) interviews with couples, Friedlander et al . (2019) found that across clinical and nonclinical samples, adults in committed relationships reported moderately high outcome expectations; notably, they had more favourable expectations for their own behaviour in couple therapy than for the behaviour of their partners. Moreover, positive outcome expectations (for both personal and relational change) were significantly associated with participants’ help‐seeking attitudes, the degree to which they valued personal growth, and perceptions of their own and their partner’s levels of accessibility, engagement and responsiveness in the relationship.…”