Name of Model
Concurrent Therapy
Introduction
Concurrent therapy refers to when a therapist sees each member of a couple separately, in two different individual sessions. This is contrasted to conjoint therapy, seeing the couple together in the same session. While conjoint therapy is the community standard for couple therapy, concurrent therapy can be feasible and effective in particular situations (Gurman and Burton 2014). Concurrent therapy commonly occurs during intake to learn each partner’s point of view separately or as a mediation tool when couples are not able to be in the same therapy session without fighting. Concurrent therapy is also effective when the couple needs to overcome their intrapersonal challenges in order to improve their relationship (Gurman and Burton 2014; Hefner and Prochaska 1984; Cookerly 1974). Other common prompts for concurrent therapy include one partner refusing to participate in a conjoint session, one partner’s cognitive impairment or substance...
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References
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Ewing, W.D., Rohlfing Pryor, J. (2018). Concurrent Therapy. In: Lebow, J., Chambers, A., Breunlin, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15877-8_580-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15877-8_580-1
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