ABSTRACT
Cognitive therapy as applied to couples and families has evolved out of the behavioural school of thought, when theorists of this school first began to apply their techniques to couples in the 1960s. The principles of behaviour modification were applied to the interactional patterns of family members, specifically to the marital dyad. Behavioural therapy with couples was originally referred to as behaviour exchange theory and has more recently been referred to as the social learning model. Beck's cognitive therapy with couples differs from Ellis's theory by combining many of the insights from the psychodynamic therapies, along with several of the strategies first established by behaviour theorists. The cognitive approach involves ferreting out a couple's basic beliefs and then collaboratively redefining key principles and restructuring the couple's belief system. The Family Beliefs Inventory (FBI) assesses ten potentially unrealistic beliefs that parents and adolescents maintain about their relationships, and which are likely to contribute to parent-adolescent conflict.
