Treating Infidelity - Hope and Justification - Annotated Bibliography Example

Annotated Bibliography AffairRecovery.com. . Welcome Packet. Retrieved August 2, from AffairRecovery.com: http www.media.affairrecovery.com.s3.amazonaws.com/ems/ems_welcome_packet.pdf This is a particularly intriguing site. They offer emergency marriage seminars on weekends, for the public and for organization sponsorship. A number of counseling partners participate in the leadership of this effort, and all of them have had affairs or had partners who had affairs, and have gone through the recovery process. They make themselves available to help others with the recovery process. There is a lengthy interview of a social worker by a Christian pastor, all on the topic of marital infidelity, various reasons why it happens and what to do about it. Something I found particularly unusual and truly a unique contribution was a section on how to handle affair disclosure and recovery with children, what to say and what not to say. The organization is particularly focused on hope and how to make it a reality. It is a very practical site and they put immediate help and helpers at your disposal. Blow, A. J., & Hartnett, K. (April 2005). Infidelity in committed relationships II: A substantive review. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy. This is an excellent review of the research literature and findings on infidelity in committed relationships, covering prevalence, attitudes, types of infidelity, gender and relationship dynamics, race, culture, income, same-sex, education, employment, attachment, opportunity, recovery, and clinical practices related to infidelity. A major strength of this article is that it is grounded in recent research only, as opposed to opinions, philosophical and theoretical speculation. A major complication the authors found is that there is little agreement on definitions, measurements, therapist stances, findings, and variability in how relationships are defined and operate. The authors advise cautious interpretation of the findings. Bravo, I.M. & Lumpkin, P.W. (2010). The complex case of marital infidelity: An explanatory model of contributory processes to facilitate psychotherapy. Journal of Clinical Psychology, Vol. 61, Issue 11, 1383-1391 This articles unique contribution is in outlining the universal, lifelong involuntary and volitional processes that contribute to marital infidelity. They include such things as habituation/dishabituation, perception, quality of attachment, deficits in executive functions and empathy, and short-term mating strategies. These appear early on and are linked to later marital infidelity risk patterns such as boredom, perception of opportunities, unmet emotional needs, impulsivity, deficits in empathic responding, and habitual casual sex. Butler, M. H., Harper, J. M., & Seedall, R. B. (2009). Facilitated disclosure versus clinical accommodation of infidelity secrets: An early pivot point in couple therapy: Part 1: Couple relationship ethics, pragmatics, and attachment. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, Vol. 35, No. 1, 125-143. Therapists often face the conflicting issue of whether to help the straying partner move toward renewed fidelity by disclosing infidelity to the marriage partner or whether to support keeping it a secret and move on from there. The basic reason for disclosure is to start with a clean slate, based on trust. The reason to support keeping it a secret is to spare the couple emotional volatility and relationship damage. Major issues for consideration, in this conflict, include relationship ethics and pragmatics, attachment and intimacy consequences, and prospects for healing. The conclusion of the article is that therapists should facilitate voluntary disclosure of the infidelity as that has the best possibilities for increased attachment intimacy outcome, and is the most ethical course of action. The article is valuable for its presentation of ethical argument. However, the range of its practical application is questionable. They refer to a 1994 study (Brock and Coufal) which found that 96% of therapists said they would always opt to support keeping the infidelity a secret, yet the authors of this article argue that these therapists are probably not taking ethics into account. Two of the three authors of this article are at Brigham Young University, which would indicate a probable specific religious orientation. Indeed, they mentioned that their experience has been with attachment-oriented therapists working with Christian couples. Their arguments are reflective of a strong bias that holds therapists responsible as moral guides. This bias is not common to therapists outside religious traditions. Therefore, although the article is useful in providing ethical considerations, there is a strong bias which must be taken into account. Carlson, J. & Sperry, L., editors (2010). Recovering intimacy in love relationships: A clinicians guide. New York: Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group. This book is a collection of articles on intimacy and infidelity. It covers a range of types, including internet infidelity, financial infidelity, emotional infidelity, and the infidelity of anger, etc. It also discusses cultural-specific treatment for Latinos and African Americans. Dodini, A. J. (2000). Treating infidelity: Therapists ratings of hope, threat, forgiveness, and justification. Retrieved August 2, 2011, from Thesis: http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-12192000-130323/unrestricted/thesis.pdf This is a Master’s thesis, from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, based on an experimental research design in which 82 therapists were randomly assigned to six groups. Members of each group were assigned one of six vignettes relating an extramarital affair scenario, then answered an online questionnaire. Manipulated variables included gender of the affair initiator and type of affair (sexual, emotional, combination). The Dependent variables were hope, threat, forgiveness and justification. Data was also collected about the therapists’ personal experience with affairs. The findings indicated that an affair is more threatening when initiated by the woman partner, than by the male partner, and that a woman’s affair is more easily justified by therapist participants. Since very little is known about the impact of therapist beliefs and affair experience on the treatment of infidelity, this paper is valuable on that count. Fife, S. T., Weeks, G. R., & Gambescia, N. (October 2008). Treating infidelity: An integrative approach. The Family Journal: Counseling and Therapy for Couples and Families, Vol. 16 No. 4, , 316-323. Assuming infidelity to be a systemic, intimacy-based problem, an integrative approach is introduced, based on the Intersystems approach developed by Weeks, making use of individual and systemic psychotherapy. There are five inter-related phases of treatment: crisis management and assessment, systemic considerations, forgiveness facilitation, treating contributing factors, intimacy-promoting communication. Individual, couple and family-of-origin risk factors are identified and dealt with in order to strengthen weaknesses and prevent future betrayals. The real value of this article lies in its outlining of specific steps of intervention for handling infidelity, which is generally understood by therapists to be a very difficult area to treat. hthyou.com. (2008, July 13). Surviving Infidelity. Interview with Dr. Shirley Glass. Retrieved August 2, 2011, from Hope This Helps You: http://www.hthyou.com/2008/07/surviving-infidelity.html This is a wonderfully different article. While most articles in the subject area focus on infidelity with a disease model and addiction model, and argue for disclosure for recovery, this article forsakes the medical models of infidelity in favor of a more balanced perspective, one which therapists also need to strongly consider. Dr. Glass emphasizes the individuality of relationships and places a particular focus on the positive outcomes of infidelity, as well as the negative ones. She notes, for example, that having an affair does not at all mean that married love is over or lessened or that one is being emotionally unfaithful. In fact, many happy marriages involve secret affairs. She raises a point not raised by the medical model people: an affair is a statement about the person who has the affair and not necessarily a statement about the marriage, and it can sometimes be a positive statement. For example, an affair might give opportunities to expand identity and try out new ways of being. Dr. Glass feels an important aspect of therapy for infidelity is coming to understand what the affair represented for the person who indulged. It can have a positive influence if the individual can understand what part of them was given permission, in the affair, and then translating that into the marriage. For example, if the spouse is highly competent and the affair enabled the partner to come to the rescue, then translating that into the marriage in such a way as to allow and recognize how to support and occasionally rescue the competent spouse can be a positive contribution to the marriage. In this interview, Dr. Glass looks at affair justification and discusses the evolution of modern day affairs. It is a fascinating interview. Jagers, J.L. (2011). Reconciling a marriage after an affair. Retrieved August 2, 2011, from J. Lee Jagers: http://leejagers.wordpress.com/2006/03/18/after-an-affair/ This article addresses (1) marriage options (2) affair closure (3) trust (4) disclosure (5) forgiveness (6) individual issues (7) renewing physical intimacy. The author is with a theological seminary, so the site has a strong Christian bias, detailing God’s view of marriage given as motivation for Christian therapists to favor reconciliation over other options. It will be especially helpful for Christian therapists or therapists working with Christian clients, but it also has general applicability. Nelson, T., Piercy, F. P., & Sprenkle, D. H. (2005). Internet Fidelity. Journal of Couple and Relationship Therapy, Vol. 4, Issue 2-3 , 173-194. Twenty experts on extramarital affairs and sex-addiction responded to three representative vignettes on internet infidelity. Areas of agreement and disagreement were identified and analyzed. There was mostly disagreement among the experts. The article discusses the main arguments of disagreement and the unique features of internet infidelity, as well as gender differences and intervention strategies for internet infidelity. The value of this article lies in its expansion of the marital infidelity discourse to the internet arena. Schneider, J. P., Corley, M. D., & irons, R. R. (1998). Surviving disclosure of infidelity: Results of an international survey of 164 recovering sex addicts and partners. Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity 5 (3), 189-218. This article reports research findings from a study in which 82 sex-addicts and 82 partners completed anonymous surveys about their behaviors and feelings around the impact of sex-addiction and recovery. It was found that disclosure to a partner is not a one-time encounter but happens over time; disclosure is most effective when it tells all but leaves out the gory details; although half of the partners threatened to leave after disclosure, only a quarter did so; half the addicts relapsed; neither disclosure nor threats to leave prevent relapse; 96 of addicts and 93% of partners eventually feel disclosure was a good thing to do; peer and therapist support for partners is particularly important during disclosure; honesty is critical to healing; counseling and 12-step programs are best approaches to recovery. Tripoli, C. (nd). Long term treatment of partners of sex addicts: A multi-phase approach. Retrieved August 2, 2011, from STAR Sexual Trauma and Recovery: http://www.starhealing.org/resources/article3.htm The value of this article lies in its focus on clinical interventions, both individual and group psychotherapy, for the partners of sex-addicts who practice marital infidelity. This group is referred to as co-addicts. The article is a clinical review, not research-based, of more than 100 designated co-addicts wanting to heal from the effects of partner infidelity and recover so that they do not engage in patterns of behavior that support the sex-addicts infidelity, in a continuing relationship. 10% of the co-addicts are male and 90% are female (mostly married with children). The paper addresses how co-addicts present for treatment, typical co-addict behaviors and recovery phases, differences in initial and long term responses to the impact of sex-addiction, and useful interventions for the co-addict population. The author feels it is essential for both therapists and co-addict partners to understand what is normal in the recovery process, and be able to anticipate what is coming next, so that they are not more overwhelmed than they need to be, and so therapists do not inadvertently interfere with normal recovery processes. This article makes a valuable contribution to the literature because it outlines what is normal and therefore should not be interfered with, and also because it focuses on this particular side of the infidelity scene. truthaboutdeception.com. (2011). Is my husband or wife, boyfriend or girlfriend likely to cheat? Retrieved August 3, 2011, from Truth About Deception: http://www.truthaboutdeception.com/cheating-and-infidelity/infidelity-quiz.htm. At this site, an individual may access either a quiz for men or a quiz for women who want to compare their partner to the known risk factors for infidelity, rather than just worry needlessly. Although it is unlikely that this quiz is deeply grounded in scientific research, it might be useful to spark discussion with a client or at a seminar on the topic of infidelity. A lot of people worry about the fidelity of their entirely faithful partners, based on past experience with less faithful partners or based on mom and dads behavior or a close friends behavior. This is a fun way to restore perspective and perhaps to initiate a less burdensome conversation with a partner, on the topic. Whisman, M.A. & Wagers, T.P. (2005). Assessing relationship betrayals. Journal of Clinical Psychology, Vol. 61, Issue 11, 1383-1391 This article focuses on the assessment of relationship betrayals. It addresses assessment definitions, assessment methods, assessment timing and targets, confidentiality, assessing clinical concerns. The article makes use of case vignettes. It is an article that is pertinent to the topic of infidelity, hope, trust and justification, and how therapists should work with these issues, since the trauma of infidelity is less about sex and more about betrayal. Zur, O. (2011). Infidelity and affairs: Facts and myths and what works. Retrieved August 2, 2011, from Zur Institute: http://www.zurinstitute.com/infidelity.html This scholarly article discusses myths, facts, theoretical perspectives, recovery phases and clinical guidelines relative to infidelity, and emphasizes bringing something positive out of it. This is a particularly unusual site because, in addition to an excellent article, this is an institute that offers a continuing education course for credit to therapists and others who want to better understand the issues involved. Read More