Marital communication and decision making: Analysis, assessment, and change

This book offers a welcome contribution to the field of marital counseling. It offers a step-by-step description of assessment and intervention procedures designed to improve verbal communication and decision-making abilities. Verbal behavior is viewed as having two functions—message sending and behavior guidance—a distinction often made before, as the author notes. The purpose of the former is to inform the listener, whereas the latter is viewed as having multiple functions including holding the attention of the listener, having the listener appropriately track what is being said, maintaining appropriate amounts of speech when the listener speaks, maintainin continuity of content over exchanges, and arranging an equitable speaker-listener interchange in terms of talk time.