Treating Difficult Couples : Helping Clients with Coexisting Mental and Relationship Disorders

This essential handbook describes effective treatments for a particularly challenging clinical population: couples struggling with both relationship distress and individual mental health difficulties. Distinguished scientist-practitioners provide detailed accounts of their respective approaches, reviewing conceptual and empirical foundations as well as clinical procedures. Included are well-established treatments for couples in which one or both partners has anxiety, mood disorders, schizophrenia, substance abuse, sexual dysfunction, or physical aggression. Also covered are emerging couple-based approaches to managing personality disorders, PTSD, difficulties related to aging and physical illness, and other problems. Following a standard format to facilitate comparison across treatments, each chapter is illustrated with detailed case material. Provided are powerful insights and tools for couple and family therapists, clinicians providing individual therapy, and students in any mental health discipline.

Douglas K. Snyder, PhD, LMFT, is Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Texas A&M University, where he also served as Director of Clinical Training for 20 years. Dr. Snyder has engaged in clinical practice and training of couple therapists since the 1970s, and is a clinical member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT). He is coauthor or coeditor of several books for mental health professionals and general readers. Dr. Snyder has served as editor of the \Clinician’s Research Digest and as associate editor of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology and the Journal of Family Psychology. He is a recipient of the Distinguished Contribution to Research in Family Therapy Award from AAMFT, the Distinguished Contribution to Family Psychology Award from Division 43 (Society for Couple and Family Psychology) of the American Psychological Association (APA), and the Distinguished Psychologist Award from Division 29 (Society for the Advancement of Psychotherapy) of APA.

Mark A. Whisman, PhD, is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Colorado at Boulder. His research, which has been supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, has focused on the reciprocal association between relationship functioning and mental health. His other areas of interest include cognitive-behavioral and interpersonal perspectives on the onset, maintenance, and treatment of depression and relationship distress. A Founding Fellow of the Academy of Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies, Dr. Whisman has served as Associate Editor for Contemporary Psychology and as an editorial board member of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Journal of Family Psychology, and Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice.