Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Kathleen Eldridge

Congratulations to Dr. Kathleen Eldridge, Professor Of Psychology, on her two recent publications! The first is Client perceptions of the most and least helpful aspects of couple therapy published in the Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy. 

"Couples have a unique perspective to share about the therapy they receive. The current study uses a mixed-methods design to examine what couples report about most and least helpful elements of two behaviorally-based treatments tested in a large clinical trial of couple therapy. Results indicate that responses are highly variable and fall into five main themes, which are then compared between treatment conditions, genders, and outcome groups. One interesting finding is that all groups reported wanting more discussion of sexual issues. Findings are discussed in the context of common factors research, recent developments toward unified principles of change in couple therapy, and model-specific differences."

The second is Integrative Behavioral Couple Therapy for Intercultural Couples: Helping Couples Navigate Cultural Differences, which is published in Contemporary Family Therapy: An International Journal.

"Integrative Behavioral Couple Therapy (IBCT), an empirically supported third-wave behavioral approach for the treatment of couples, is examined in this multiple case study. IBCT was developed to help couples navigate challenging differences, so this study examines its use with couples reporting problems arising from differences in self-identified cultural identities, practices, or beliefs. The experiences of three therapists using IBCT in their work with intercultural couples is examined. Each participating therapist in this study contributes by describing one case in which IBCT was used to help the couple with existing conflicts related to cultural differences. These descriptions, provided through written responses to open-ended questions, were examined using cross-case analysis. Results include descriptions of the various stressors faced by intercultural couples, therapists’ formulations of cultural differences, change processes and change mechanisms during treatment, and similarities and differences across therapists’ reports. Specific quotations that demonstrate main ideas and particularly poignant or useful information are integrated. The study concludes with participating therapists’ recommendations for treatment of intercultural couples in general, their recommendations for utilizing IBCT with intercultural couples, and implications for future research."

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