Hope, Forgiveness, and Positive Psychology in Couple Therapy

Book excerpt: This guide introduces the Hope-Focused Approach to couple therapy and provides a hands-on, practical resource for clinicians and students to integrate this approach into their practice effectively. Drawing from positive psychology, virtue theory, and forgiveness theory, the book describes how therapists can design a hope-focused treatment to promote intimacy, help couples communicate and resolve disagreements, strengthen emotional bonds, build trust, guide forgiveness, and encourage reconciliation. This book takes the therapist from assessing couples, to designing initial treatment plans, intervening in sessions, and facilitating termination. Focusing on communication training and conflict resolution, Worthington and Ripley share over 100 evidence-based techniques, case studies, and interventions to illustrate how to help couples effectively. Examples incorporate complex issues of race and sexuality, as well as values such as religion and politics. This practical guide arms therapists with a strategy to enrich their practice of couple therapy, equips them with practical techniques, and helps them promote forgiveness and reconciliation when couples seek it. This book is an invaluable resource for beginning counselors, graduate students, and practicing marriage and family therapists.