Comparative efficacy of the relationship checkup for same-gender couples.

Same-gender couples face unique sexual minority stressors that significantly impact individual and relationship health. This impact may be even greater among same-gender couples living in regions where there are pervasive social and legal biases that affect the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and/or questioning, intersex, asexual, two-spirit (LGBTQIA2S+) community (e.g.

Clarifying and measuring the characteristics of experiences that involve a loss of self or a dissolution of its boundaries.

Mystical experience, non-dual awareness, selflessness, self-transcendent experience, and ego-dissolution have become increasingly prominent constructs in meditation and psychedelic research. However, these constructs and their measures tend to be highly overlapping, imprecise, and poorly integrated with similar pathological experiences. The present study seeks to clarify the common factors involved in the characteristics of these experiences using precise distinctions across an array of experience contexts (including meditation, psychedelics, and psychopathology).

Improvements in depressive symptoms following a brief relationship intervention.

In the United States, 21 million adults are diagnosed with depression. Couple therapy effectively treats depression, however, couples encounter access barriers. The Relationship Checkup is an assessment and feedback intervention delivered in participants' homes.

Couple variables predicting retention in a brief intervention and research.

Therapy is an effective form of treatment for couple distress; yet, research shows that 20%-60% of couples terminate treatment prematurely. Predictors of couple retention in therapy and research are unclear, particularly for couples from marginalized populations, which has important implications for the quality and generalizability of research results, and the benefits derived from therapy are limited when participants are not retained. The purpose of this study (N = 1310) was to identify couple-level variables that predict (1) retention in a brief, two-session couple intervention (The Relationship Checkup) delivered as a home visitation program and (2) retention in research participation at 1- and 6-month follow-up.

Marriage checkup in integrated primary care: A randomized controlled trial with active-duty military couples.

Objective: This study assessed the efficacy of the marriage checkup, as adapted to integrated primary care settings and active-duty military couples, for improving relationship health and depressive symptoms.

Method: Married couples (N = 244, Mage = 32.4, 67.

The Before Baby Relationship Checkup: A Couples-Based Intervention to Reduce Relationship Risk Factors for Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders.

Relationship conflict and lack of partner support are risk factors for perinatal mood and anxiety disorders. An intervention to strengthen couples' relationships before birth may reduce relationship risk factors for perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, though no research has explored this to date. The aims of this Stage 1 open-series non-experimental proof of concept study were to adapt the 'Marriage Checkup', an evidence-based intervention for relationship distress, as a preventative intervention for perinatal mood and anxiety disorders and to assess its feasibility and acceptability.

Disentangling acceptance: Direct and indirect effects of partner acceptance on felt acceptance and relationship satisfaction.

Acceptance in intimate relationships predicts relationship satisfaction, as well as positive treatment outcomes in some couple interventions. However, little research has attempted to disentangle the dyadic effects of husbands' and wives' partner acceptance (i.e.

Your place or mine?: Examining the accessibility and efficacy of a brief, home-based, couple intervention.

Interventions for couples that can be flexibly delivered (e.g., home) are gaining traction in the field of couple therapy, particularly for underserved couples who experience barriers to accessing traditional methods of care.

Randomized Controlled Trial of the Marriage Checkup: Depression Outcomes.

The association between relationship functioning and depressive symptoms is well established. This study examined the effects of the Marriage Checkup, a brief two-session Assessment and Feedback relationship intervention, on depressive symptoms. Two hundred and nine married couples participated in the Marriage Checkup and were randomized into Treatment (N = 108) and Waitlist-Control Conditions (N = 101).

An Implementation Study of Relationship Checkups as Home Visitations for Low-Income At-Risk Couples.

Couples with the greatest need for relationship health maintenance and intervention are often least able to afford and access it; therefore, accessible, affordable, effective, and brief interventions are needed to improve relationship health for those who need it most. Consequently, this paper examined whether a brief relationship intervention could be effectively implemented with a low-income, underserved population. All enrolled participants (N = 1,312) received the Relationship Checkup, which consists of an assessment and a feedback session delivered in their homes or at a local clinic at their request.

A randomized controlled trial of the Marriage Checkup adapted for private practice.

Objective: This study examined the effectiveness of the Marriage Checkup (MC), adapted for independent practice.

Method: A total of 233 couples were recruited from 2 metropolitan areas of Denmark and randomized to the MC adapted for independent practice (MC-P, n = 116) or a waitlist condition (WL, n = 117). Self-report measures of relationship health were obtained online at 3 (WL) or 6 (MC-P) time points across 54 weeks.

A longitudinal examination of positive parenting following an acceptance-based couple intervention.

Positive parenting practices have been shown to be essential for healthy child development, and yet have also been found to be particularly challenging for parents to enact and maintain. This article explores an innovative approach for increasing positive parenting by targeting specific positive emotional processes within marital relationships. Couple emotional acceptance is a powerful mechanism that has repeatedly been found to improve romantic relationships, but whether these effects extend to the larger family environment is less well understood.

The heart of change: Acceptance and intimacy mediate treatment response in a brief couples intervention.

In this study, we examined mediators of a brief couples intervention. Intimate safety, acceptance, and activation were examined in 2 roles: their contribution to marital satisfaction gains in the first 2 weeks after treatment (contemporaneous effects), and how early changes in the mediators influenced longer term changes in marital satisfaction over 2 years of follow-up (lagged effects). Married couples (N = 215) were randomized to either an intervention group or a wait-list control group and followed for 2 years.

Motivating Action and Maintaining Change: The Time-Varying Role of Homework Following a Brief Couples' Intervention.

Studies regarding the effectiveness of homework assignments in cognitive-behavioral treatments have demonstrated mixed results. This study investigated predictors of compliance with homework recommendations and the time-varying relationship of recommendation completion with treatment response in a brief couples' intervention (N = 108). More satisfied couples and couples with more motivation to change completed more recommendations, whereas couples with children completed fewer.

The Marriage Checkup: a randomized controlled trial of annual relationship health checkups.

Objective: This study assessed the efficacy of the Marriage Checkup (MC) for improving relationship health and intimacy.

Method: Cohabiting married couples (N = 215, Mage women = 44.5 years, men = 47 years, 93.

Predicting Relationship Help Seeking Prior to a Marriage Checkup.

Although the barriers to couples' help seeking can be daunting, to date there is only a small body of literature addressing the factors that motivate couples to seek help. This study examined the association between attitudes towards relationship help seeking and relationship help seeking behaviors, as well as the association between marital quality and help seeking. This study was completed in the context of the Marriage Checkup, a brief intervention designed to reduce the barriers to help seeking.

The marriage checkup: increasing access to marital health care.

Despite the ongoing prevalence of marital distress, very few couples seek therapy. Researchers and clinicians have increasingly been calling for innovative interventions that can reach a larger number of untreated couples. Based on a motivational marital health model, the Marriage Checkup (MC) was designed to attract couples who are unlikely to seek traditional tertiary therapy.

Pathways between marriage and parenting for wives and husbands: the role of coparenting.

As family systems research has expanded, so have investigations into how marital partners coparent together. Although coparenting research has increasingly found support for the influential role of coparenting on both marital relationships and parenting practices, coparenting has traditionally been investigated as part of an indirect system which begins with marital health, is mediated by coparenting processes, and then culminates in each partner's parenting. The field has not tested how this traditional model compares with the equally plausible alternative model, in which coparenting simultaneously predicts both marital relationships and parenting practices.

Mindful relating: exploring mindfulness and emotion repertoires in intimate relationships.

This study tested the theory that mindfulness contributes to greater intimate relationship satisfaction by fostering more relationally skillful emotion repertoires. A sample of married couples was administered measures of mindful awareness, emotion skills, and marital quality. We hypothesized that mindfulness would be associated with both marital quality and partners' emotion skills and that the association between mindfulness and marital quality would be mediated by emotion repertoire skill.

Predicting 2-year marital satisfaction from partners' discussion of their marriage checkup.

This study tested whether the observed marital interactions of partners following a marriage checkup predicted marital satisfaction 2 years later. In addition, this study examined whether recommendations to pursue therapy predicted subsequent treatment seeking and whether changes in marital distress following the checkup remained stable over 2 years. Results suggest that the affective tone of a couple's interaction predicts later marital satisfaction.

The influence of adult attachment styles on the association between marital adjustment and depressive symptoms.

This study tested the hypothesis that attachment styles moderate the relationship between marital adjustment and depressive symptoms among husbands and wives. In a sample of 91 married couples, ratings of the anxious-ambivalent attachment style moderated the relationship between marital adjustment and depressive symptoms for both husbands and wives. Additionally, ratings of the secure attachment style moderated the relationship between marital adjustment and depressive symptoms for wives, with a trend for husbands.