Conjoint marital therapy to enhance anger management and reduce spouse abuse

This paper describes a treatment program for couples who mishandle anger and/or are physically abusive. Based on a social learning conception of marital aggression, the treatment endorses the elimination of demonstrations of anger in abusive couples and elaborates upon ways to identify preliminary anger cues, to establish a ground rule that abusiveness is unacceptable, to develop alternative responses that interrupt conflict patterns, and to modify faulty relationship assumptions. Methods to improve couples' problem-solving skills and to enhance their overall enjoyment of the relationship are also proposed as important supplements to the training in anger management skills.