ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the need for couples-based preventive interventions. The concept of prevention emerged first in the field of public health and then in the fields of community psychology and community psychiatry. In the field of public health, prevention was initially defined in absolute terms—whether or not the actions taken resulted in the occurrence or elimination of the disease. The chapter provides the concept of family transitions in an attempt to rescue the term from its vague current usage in which any change in an individual is described in transitional terms. Transitions to adolescence, leaving home, and becoming an adult are major normative post-childhood life changes. From the high incidence of couple dissatisfaction and divorce and the increasing tendency of couples not to marry, it is clear that couples face a daunting challenge in their attempts to maintain an intimate romantic relationship over a lifetime.
