Brief therapy with couples

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Abstract
One of the difficulties of doing brief therapy with couples is simply determining “what kind of couple this is,” and, therefore, “what kind of intervention is likely to be effective.” Jackson saw it as “possible to classify families or relationships into four types on the basis of the transactions used to define the nature of the relationship. These four categories are: stable satisfactory, unstable satisfactory, stable unsatisfactory, and unstable unsatisfactory” (Jackson, 1968, p. 192). This classification seems to make the assumption that stability and satisfaction are symmetrical: both parties are either seen as satisfied or both parties are seen as not satisfied. In the model to be presented here, asymmetry on either or both of these measures will be considered as helpful for the therapist in designing a step-by-step approach to a specific couple based on a cognitive map of their relationship structure.

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