Evaluating behavioral marital therapy for male alcoholics: Effects on marital adjustment and communication from before to after treatment

Married couples, in which the husband had recently begun individual outpatient alcoholism counseling, were randomly assigned to a no-marital-treatment control group or to 10 weekly sessions of either a behavioral or an interactional couples therapy group. Couples who received the behavioral marital therapy (BMT) improved significantly from before to after treatment on overall marital adjustment, extent of desired relationship change, marital stability, and positiveness of communication when discussing a current marital problem. Interactionally treated couples improved on extent of desired relationship change and positive communication while discussing vignettes from the Inventory of Marital Conflicts. The control couples did not improve on any of the marital relationship variables. BMT produced better results than no marital therapy on marital adjustment and