Empirically supported couple and family interventions for marital distress and adult mental health problems.

This article evaluates the efficacy, effectiveness, and clinical significance of empirically supported couple and family interventions for treating marital distress and individual adult disorders, including anxiety disorders, depression, sexual dysfunctions, alcoholism and problem drinking, and schizophrenia.In addition to consideration of different theoretical approaches to treating these disorders, different ways of including a partner or family in treatment are highlighted: (a) partner-family-assisted interventions, (b) disorder-specific partner-family interventions, and (c)more general couple-family therapy.Findings across diagnostic groups and issues involved in applying efficacy criteria to these populations are discussed.Since the 1970s, there has been a major shift in knowledge regarding the effectiveness of couple-based and family-based interventions for treating adult mental health problems.During this period, various theoretical perspectives have been articulated, specific manual-based intervention strategies have been developed, and controlled treatment outcome investigations have explored a number of specific issues of importance.The current article examines the empirical status of these couple-and family-based interventions for treating (a) marital distress and (b) adult individual diagnosable disorders.More explicitly, the primary goal of this article is to use the criteria put forth by Chambless and Hollon (1998) to evaluate the efficacy, clinical significance, and effectiveness of various interventions that involve a couple or family format.The criteria provide a unifying framework for evaluating the wide variety of psychological interventions.As we reviewed the literature on couple-and family-based interventions, we became aware that there were a number of decisions that had to be made with regard to the application of these criteria.Given that other reviewers may have interpreted and applied the Chambless and Hollon (1998) guidelines in a different manner, we begin this