Couples Therapy: A Nontraditional Approach

by Daniel B. Wile

Presents an innovative approach to couples therapy based upon a nonadversary therapeutic model that encourages partners to incorporate their conflicts and fantasies into their relationship. Sets forth a critique of the psychoanalytic, behavioral, and systems approaches and describes techniques for patient-therapist collaboration and supportive therapeutic intervention on behalf of each partner, Includes strategies for handling angry partners, withdrawn partners, polarized partners, and patients who reject the therapist's interpretations.

248 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1981

Reviews

[Filip Polak · Rating 4 out of 5]

The nontraditional approach in question turns out to be seeing patients as human beings that are suffering, rather than as manipulative ghouls.

Wile dedicates a great chunk of the book to describing what his approach is a counter-approach to. Distancing itself from the dismissive "separation-individuation" of psychoanalytic approach, from the nonverbal and paradoxical methods of Jackson-Haley method, and from the transactional nature of behavioural approach.

Wile's "nontraditional approach" ends up being a back-to-basics approach to therapy - communication, observation and saying the unsaid between the partners.

Wile ends the book with a couple dozen pages defining his approach: building conflict into the relationship and building fantasies into the relationship. The definition seems like a ¾-boiled idea, which it is, as this was when Wile was still forming his "Collaborative Couple Therapy" over decades to come. I will need to read his later work, but this was a great entry.

[Shana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wile's approach to couples therapy can be summed up as helping the couple to both step inside of their pain and their core beliefs, as well as stepping outside of their usual interactions to become observers of their own relationship. I appreciated reading about his approach, but I wish so much of the book hadn't been taken up by his explanation of other theories and approaches. While I understand that he wanted to explain his perspective as a contrast to the others, I felt that the book lost me at times. Rather than defining things by what they aren't, I would have preferred for him to state from the outset what his approach IS.