Treating Infidelity in Couples: An Integrative Approach

Donald H. Baucom, Chapel Hill, USA

This workshop will present an integrative approach to treating affair couples. The workshop is designed for couple therapists already skilled in the fundamental techniques of couple therapy, but who wish conceptual as well as specific clinical skills in working with this difficult population. The treatment integrates cognitive-behavioral with insight-oriented or developmental techniques. Both individual and couple therapists need the skills taught in this workshop. Infidelity is the 2nd leading cause of divorce for women and the 3rd leading cause for men. Moreover, couple therapists rate extramarital affairs as the 3rd most difficult issue to treat. The presenters of this workshop have developed a 3-stage intervention model for intervening with affair couples. Preliminary outcome data regarding the efficacy of this treatment have been presented at national meetings, and descriptions of the treatment have been published in professional handbooks and scientific journals.

The workshop will begin with an overview of the affair literature and will present a theoretical rationale for viewing recovery from affairs from a trauma perspective. Specific domains and clinical assessment techniques will be described for tailoring this intervention to affair couples. Both videotapes and multiple case vignettes will be used to demonstrate key intervention strategies. The treatment approach to be presented in this workshop draws on the theoretical and empirical literature regarding traumatic response as well as interpersonal forgiveness. It incorporates empirically-supported interventions from both cognitive-behavioral and insight-oriented approaches to treating couple distress. The affair-specific intervention model described here is the only couple-based intervention designed specifically to address both individual and relationship consequences of infidelity to have been empirically examined and supported in clinical research. Three stages of intervention will be described:

Stage I: Containing the initial impact. Interventions comprising this stage include: (a) re-establishing individual and relational equilibrium by promoting self-care and establishing behavioral routines; and (b) limiting further trauma by minimizing destructive exchanges between partners.
Stage II: Examining the context. Interventions in this stage emphasize re-establishing predictability and security by collaboratively deriving a comprehensive formulation that articulates proximal and distal factors both within and outside the relationship contributing to vulnerability to, participation in, and maintenance of the affair.
Stage III: Moving on. Interventions in this stage help couples to reach an informed decision about how to move forward – either separately or by continuing the relationship – and to identify additional steps for securing individual and relational well-being.