A Program of Research on Behavioral Marital Therapy: Hot Spots and Smoldering Embers in Marital Therapy Research

Abstract

This research program overview elaborates the conceptual and empirical development of our program of behavioral marital therapy (BMT). The article outlines the refinement of our procedures, our search for the `active ingredients' of BMrs successes, our brush with cognitive therapy (leading to our doubts that the two therapies could be integrated) and our most recent examinations of the behavioral/contextual philosophical roots of BMT. Our attempts to improve BMT have moved us closer to general relationship themes, such as the nature of intimacy, and have identified not only new sparks of interest but also other themes perhaps best left to smolder into embers.