CLIENT GENDER AS A PROCESS VARIABLE IN MARRIAGE AND FAMILY-THERAPY - ARE WOMEN CLIENTS INTERRUPTED MORE THAN MEN CLIENTS

Influenced by language and therapeutic discourse as well as the femini st critique of marriage and family therapy, the authors conducted rese arch to evaluate conversational power in marriage and family therapy. Research on interruptions has received the most empirical attention, s o the authors examined videotaped therapy sessions to see if women cli ents were interrupted more than men clients. This strategy integrated scholarship on gender and conversation into research on marriage and f amily therapy process. Multivariate analysis of variance was used to e xamine the different treatment of women and men clients; gender of the rapist was used as a control variable. Results indicated that marriage and family doctoral students interrupted women clients three times mo re than men clients.