ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the initial phase of treatment: discovery or disclosure of the infidelity and absorbing the reality of it. This is often the beginning of treatment, and the point where competent, systemic couples therapists can make the most difference or where poorly trained clinicians stumble blindly in the dark. The systemic couples counselor has to convince both partners that the infidelity is a symptom of something more fundamentally wrong in the relationship and that each partner had a role to play in creating the conditions that created the opportunity for the infidelity to occur (and therefore both have a role to play in recovering from it). This chapter is devoted solely to understanding this initial phase and the important clinical considerations that need to be made. After completing this phase, the therapist should have a good understanding of how committed the couple is for treatment and what the prognosis is. This is where the couple can be introduced to the three-step model for treating the infidelity (which is a recapitulation, in reverse, of the three-step model for understanding infidelity).
