Are goals and topics influenced by gender and modality in the initial marriage and family therapy session?

Establishment of a goal is crucial to therapy, but identification of therap eutic goals may be difficult in conjoint therapy because each participant m ay identify, a different problem. We examined the influence of gender on ab ility to successfully introduce therapeutic topics in marital and family th erapy by conducting two studies. The first study evaluates the ability of t herapists to identify, therapeutic goals that matched goals prioritized by both women and men clients on pretherapy questionnaires. The second study e xamines the process of initial therapy sessions to see whether gender influ ences a client's ability to introduce a therapeutic topic. Results suggest that therapeutic topic is influenced by the interaction of gender and treat ment modality. Specifically, therapists were better able to match women's p retherapy stated goals in marital therapy than family therapy, men were mor e successful at introducing topics in family therapy, and women were more s uccessful at introducing topics in marital therapy.