THERAPIST DEFENSIVENESS AND MARITAL-THERAPY PROCESS AND OUTCOME

This study examined the effect of couple socioeconomic status (SES); p retherapy marital adjustment; and therapist, husband, and wife defensi veness during the third session of marital therapy on posttherapy mari tal adjustment. Participants were 22 therapists and 88 couples. Each t herapist treated 4 couples, 2 from the middle SES level and 2 from the lower SES level. Path analyses revealed that for husbands higher mari tal satisfaction before therapy was associated with higher adjustment at the end of therapy, but defensive therapist behavior during therapy was associated with lower posttherapy adjustment. A similar pattern w as found for wives, but this should be interpreted with caution owing to potential dependencies in the wives' posttherapy adjustment scores. Neither SES nor pretherapy adjustment predicted therapist defensive b ehavior in therapy, and SES did not predict marital therapy outcome va riance. Results suggest that therapist defensive behavior may reflect a style or characteristic of some marital therapists.