An Interactional Approach to Standardized Marital Assessment: A Literature Review.

An interactional approach to using standardized self-report instruments as part of the assessment of couples entering marital therapy or enrichment is described. This approach to assessment emphasizes the recursive relationship between professionals and clients in developing an understanding of dyadic patterns. Marital inventories can fulfill a number of functions in marital therapy and enrichment, including promoting hope, developing a relationship orientation to marital issues, identifying problem areas, promoting discussion, confronting couple myths, matching clients to services, intervention planning and placement, outcome evaluation, and preventive services. Finally, the most prominent and well-researched measures of marital satisfaction, instability, and intimacy are presented and evaluated regarding how well they can fulfill these functions. The assessment of couples in marital therapy and marital enrichment can provide essential information for planning and carrying out interventions. Identifying a couple's particular problem areas early can allow the issues to be addressed in a shorter period of time and assist in conceptualizing those problem areas, thereby promoting an individualized and systematic approach to each couple. The manner in which the assessment is conducted also has important implications for the therapeutic relationship and how the couple makes use of the information. This article will suggest an interactive and systemically oriented application of marital inventories that recognizes the value of educating the couple about their relationship and making use of the assessment as an intervention in itself. A review of the clinical use of marital inventories is appropriate due to the large volume of recent research validating a new generation of marital inventories. It has become feasible to fulfill a variety of assessment functions using currently available marital inventories. Such a process can save time and enhance the focus and success of marital therapy and enrichment. Standardized assessment procedures can assist the professional in (a) promoting hope for a positive outcome, (b) developing a relationship (rather than blaming) focus, (c) identifying problem areas in their relationship utilizing specific assessment data, (d) promoting focused and productive discussion of relevant issues, (e) confronting couple myths, (f) assisting in appropriately matching clients to services, (g) evaluating the ongoing progress of the therapy or enrichment, (h) evaluating outcome and termination planning, and (i) facilitating enrichment and prevention. The purposes of this article are to discuss the usefulness of an interactional approach to standardized marital assessment and to familiarize professionals working with couples with the best of the current instruments. An interactional view of marital assessment using self-report measures will be presented in the first section of the article. This will include a discussion of the therapeutic, assessment, outcome evaluation, and preventive uses of such measures. Second, marital adjustment, satisfaction, commitment, instability, communication, and intimacy inventories will be discussed. Third, these inventories will be evaluated for their usefulness in fulfilling the functions of marital assessment discussed in this article.