Beyond empiricism: The politics of marital therapy

This paper discusses the politics of marital therapy, using behavioral marital therapy (BMT) as an illustrative model. Marital therapy is viewed as inherently political. Marital therapists continuously adopt political postures without knowing it; the inadvertent consequences of this insensitivi-ty to the political context of their work are to reinforce traditional values, many of which are oppressive to women. These political postures include an emphasis on treating dyads rather than individuals, an emphasis on behavior change, and a neglect of sex role issues. Clinical innovations are suggested: paying greater attention to whether individual well-being is promoted during the course of marital therapy; shifting toward the exploration of cognitive and perceptual processes; and expanding the emphasis of BMT on process and function to include content.