ABSTRACT
As responsible and ethical practitioners and educators, it is important to keep abreast of the most current research and literature in the field. What we define as our field determines where we look for the latest information and will eventually shape what we know as couple and family therapists. Being wedded to only certain journals or books in our field may exclude valuable information from other sources. In our field, we have journals and books regarding couples therapy as a subset of family therapy and others that consider couples therapy as its own specialty. This chapter proposes that there exists an underlying tension regarding couples therapy and discusses whether or not it is a unique specialization. Some argue (Doherty, 2002; Jacobsen & Addis, 1993) that, indeed, working with couples inherently has specific idiosyncratic elements and dynamics that differ entirely from individual and family dynamics. It would then follow that supervisors should be specifically experienced in couples therapy in order to offer competent supervision to those conducting couples therapy (Doherty, 2002). Others consider that individual, couple, and family issues are inextricably linked and thus the same model of therapy should be applied in differing case situations, whether individual, couple, or family (Lindblad-Goldner, Igle, &Simms, 2011; Nelson & Thomas, 2007). In this chapter, both sides of this controversy will be presented.
