ABSTRACT
Contemporary marriage, couples’, and family education programs are an extension of programs that go back to the earliest roots of marriage and family therapy and marriage enrichment. Many recently developed marital therapies are eclectic, in that they focus on diverse aspects of marital interaction, including behavioral, emotional, and cognitive components. During the 1970s and 1980s, only a few clinicians and researchers examined the overlap between marital enrichment programs and marital therapy. In the mid-1980s, a new generation of marital and relationship enrichment and education programs began to gain precedence, borrowing from ongoing advances in research and practice. Research on marriage/couples’ education and enrichment has focused on satisfaction/distress outcomes, along with the demographics of participants, but there is very little information on the clinical characteristics of couples that attend these programs. The marriage/couples’ education and enrichment literature suggests that participants have been predominantly Caucasian, middle-class, and religiously affiliated couples.
