ABSTRACT
Approximately half of married couples divorce. Thus, research on divorce and its repercussions and prevention has vast importance for society and psychotherapy. Yet the research on divorce provides a prime example of how research findings can be poorly represented in the media, especially when they deal with values and when some of them combine questionable methodology and powerful findings. This chapter looks at what research tells us about the impact of divorce, the prediction of divorce, and the impact of therapy and prevention programs on divorce. One may knows a lot more about marriage and divorce than one did 20 years ago, and this knowledge has real clinical value, particularly in educating their clients about what behavior ruins marriages. However, research can accurately depict only some of the realities of divorce: what it is, why it happens, and how it might be averted.
