Date
6-2014
Department
Counseling Department
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Chair
David Jenkins
Keywords
Couples Counseling, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, IPA, Marriage Counseling, Marriage Intensive
Disciplines
Counseling | Counseling Psychology | Psychology
Recommended Citation
Lalonde, Tara, "The Significance of Marriage Intensives: A Multi-Perspective Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Couples' Post Intensive Experience" (2014). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects. 883.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/883
Abstract
At a time when divorce rates remain at 50% regardless of treatment efforts, this interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) explored and compared how couples made sense of their marriage experience one year after intensive marriage therapy for couples who found it significant and were able to maintain gains, and for couples who initially found it helpful but were unable to maintain gains. Three couples in each category were interviewed and compared resulting in six themes emerging from each group. Two additional overarching themes of regenerated versus disheartened and intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation and change emerged to clearly distinguish the two groups studied. Finally, the themes of this study were found to corroborate previous common factors research and future recommendations were provided.
