ABSTRACT
Marital and family therapists have focused primarily on eliminating pathology. Their interventions are usually designed to help resolve particular difficulties on problems such as marital conflict, poor communications, and conflicting sets of expectations. Such an emphasis is not surprising in light of the fact that theories of marital and family therapy stress pathology and symptom resolution in the same way that traditional theories of individual therapy stress pathology. Renewed interest dating back to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 3rd Edition-Revised (DSM-III-R; American Psychiatric Association, 1987) has refocused attention on pathology rather than on normalcy and health.
