Fwd: Chick Flicks as Couples Therapy/ Love Illuminated/ Love Sense/ Relationship Research - 2/11/14

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Smartmarriages <smartmarriages@lists101.his.com>
Date: Tue, Feb 11, 2014 at 3:14 PM
Subject: Chick Flicks as Couples Therapy/ Love Illuminated/ Love Sense/ Relationship Research - 2/11/14
To: List <smartmarriages@lists101.his.com>


- Chick Flicks as Couples Therapy
- Love Sense
- Relationship Studies need participants
#################################

- Chick Flicks as Couples Therapy
Tara Parker Pope
NY Times, Feb 11, 2014 – Science Section

An amazing study finds that discussing a relationship movie together can be as helpful as counseling.  This reminds me of John Gottman’s report at a Smart Marriages keynote that couples who simply read his book did as well as those who attended the programs.  As we keep saying, what couples need is information.  

. . . A University of Rochester study found that couples who watched and talked about issues raised in movies like “Steel Magnolias” and “Love Story” were less likely to divorce or separate than couples in a control group. Surprisingly, the “Love Story” intervention was as effective at keeping couples together as two intensive therapist-led methods.  . . .

The initial goal of the study was to evaluate two types of therapist-led interventions called CARE and PREP. The CARE method focuses on acceptance and empathy in couples counseling, while PREP is centered on a specific communication style that couples use to resolve issues. The researchers wanted a third option that allowed couples to interact but did not involve intensive counseling.

They came up with the movie intervention, assigning couples to watch five movies and to take part in guided discussions afterward. A fourth group of couples received no counseling or self-help assignments and served as a control group. . . .
Here’s the full article:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/10/movie-date-night-can-double-as-therapy/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

Comment: You can click on the link embedding in the article www.couples-research.com <http://www.couples-research.com/> that takes you to the extensive list of movies used and another link to read the movie discussion guide.  Anyone could use this intervention themselves or with couples with whom you work.  Note that the study allows that
###########################
- Love Sense
As the lead up to Valentine’s Day, The New York Times Sunday Feb 9th Book Review magazine was focused on books about love and marriage.  My favorite is a review of Love Illuminated by Daniel Jones, who has edited the Modern Love feature since 2004.  

. . . The Modern Love column in this newspaper is a guilty pleasure for the many and a source of bitter rejection for the few: Over the past nine years only some 350 columns have been published out of 50,000 submissions. . . .

. . . . “Love Illuminated” presents itself as a report on the most happening, most now kind of “love,” yet at heart supports a life philosophy as conventional as Cosmopolitan’s. Because what the book is really about is what everything from “Sex and the City” to “Fifty Shades of Grey” is really about: marriage. For all of its celebration of the “modern,” the off-kilter and the nontraditional, the pounding pulse of “Love Illuminated” is the poignant quest for a legal and permanent union. . . .

. . . . We were promised an exploration of life’s most mystifying subject, but instead what we keep coming back to is a study of life’s least mystifying subject: how it might come to pass that two like-minded graduate students in the same creative writing program might fall in love, get married, learn that marriage is not composed of an unfolding series of ever-heightened erotic pleasures, and yet still manage, year after year, to keep their leaky but serviceable vessel out of dry dock.

For the full review: http://tinyurl.com/jvm6bkv

Also included is a review by Helen Fisher of the new book, Love Sense, by Sue Johnson.  http://www.nytimes.com/pages/books/review/

. . . Enter Sue Johnson, a clinical psychologist and couples therapist who says that relationships are a basic human need and that “a stable, loving relationship is the absolute cornerstone of human happiness and general well-being.” To repair ailing partnerships, she has developed a new approach in marriage counseling called Emotionally Focused Therapy, or EFT, which she introduces in her new book, “Love Sense.”  . . . http://tinyurl.com/l6vghnq

#############################
And, here is reminder to help continue the research by participating in the relationship studies below if you haven’t yet done so, and to forward these to your list.  Thanks.
- diane
##################################
- RELATIONSHIP STUDY NEEDS PARTICIPANTS
Our study is looking at the possible link between relationship distress,
adult attachment, and attitudes towards seeking professional help. The
anonymous survey takes 10-15 minutes to complete and after completing the
survey, participants have the choice to enter for a chance to win one of our
Amazon gift cards. If they chose to enter for one of the gift cards, their
survey responses will not be able to be connected back to them in any way.
Please forward this to anyone that might help.

Here is the survey link:
http://stthomascaps.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_aVJcknbYsJrKFV3
 
Matt Fowler
Graduate Student
University of St. Thomas, Minnesota
####################################

- COMPARATIVE STUDY NEEDS PARTICIPANTS
 I am looking for married individuals to participate in my dissertation
research study: ³The perceived effectiveness of PREPARE, RELATE, and FOCCUS:
A comparative study of three assessment-based premarital counseling
programs²
>  
> Requirements to participate:
> 1.     Be married between 1 month to 10 years
> 2.     Be able to read and understand English
> 3.     Must be first marriage
>  
> What is in it for you?
> 1.       Take the Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale (RDAS, a marital
> satisfaction assessment with 14 short questions) for FREE (about $150-$200
> saving)
> 2.       Better understanding of strength and weak areas of your marriage
> 3.       Referrals will be provided to you if you request to talk to a
> marriage and family therapist. Or you can discuss the results with your
> existing therapist.
> 4.       Your information is anonymous and is held with the strictest
> confidentiality
>  
> What is requested from you?
> 1.       To complete basic info about yourself
> 2.       To take the Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale (it takes less than 10
> minutes to complete)
> 3.       Ask your wife or husband to participate as well
> 4.       FORWARD this email invitation to as many qualified people as possible
>  
> What if you are not qualified to participate?
> 1.       Please forward this email to as many people you know so they can
> participate in the study ESPECIALLY if they completed PREPARE/ENRICH, or
> RELATE, or FOCCUS in premarital counseling.
> 2.       NOTE: If you are not qualified to participate‹that DOES NOT mean your
> spouse is not qualified to participate.
> 3.       PLEASE REFER, REFER, REFER!!! You can refer your students, clients,
> colleagues, friends, families, coworkers, supervisors, ex
> boyfriends/girlfriends, and even enemies by forwarding this link to them.
>  
> How to participate (entire study takes only 10 short minutes)?
> 1.     By clicking on this link Dasmain Dissertation
> <http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/dasmainDissertation>  or
> 2.     By copying and pasting this
> link http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/dasmainDissertation
> <http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/dasmainDissertation>  to your browser.
>  
> It is my belief if we provide better premarital counseling to more people, we
> can decrease the divorce rate that is destroying far too many families in this
> great country we love. Please join me in this small step to save our marriages
> and families
>  
> Dasmain Joseph, Principal Researcher
> Candidate for Doctor of Education (ABD)
> Argosy University
> Tampa, Florida 33607, USA
> djoseph1 at stu.argosy.edu <http://lists101.his.com/mailman/listinfo/smartmarriages>  
> Cell: 813-995-7415 <tel:813-995-7415>
############################