Marriage and Family Therapy and Counseling Commons^™

Enhancing The Couple Alliance And Developing A Dyadic Orientation In Discursive Couples Therapy: A Conversation Analysis Of Therapists', Samira Y. Garcia

Department of Family Therapy Dissertations and Applied Clinical Projects

The purpose of this study is to develop an interpretative understanding of how discursive therapists’ linguistic actions enhance the couple alliance. Additionally, this study includes an exploration of whether these models hold up to a common factors conversation in the practice of couples therapy. The couple alliance is the central relationship in couples therapy. Previous research suggests that therapists’ actions might have an effect on enhancing this alliance by creating a dyadic orientation. In postmodern/discursive models of practice, therapists’ actions have gone mostly unexplored, leaving therapists with little understanding of what is done in the process of couples therapy that …