IT takes a village to save a marriage.

Edwards, Keith J.

Dr. Keith Edwards answers questions that describe his approach to Christian marriage, marital interventions and sociocultural factors in American marriages. Integration issues are presented as well as the current state of research on marriage. He describes his clinical approach to treating distressed couples based on Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy. Specific approaches to improving marriages for communities, churches and therapists are discussed.

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Can you briefly describe what kind of work you are currently doing in support of Christian marriages?

I am a professor in the doctoral program in clinical psychology at Rosemead School of Psychology, Biola University. I teach marriage therapy skills to Christian graduate students who will become counselors in their communities. In my position as an educator, I seek to read and be informed about the latest developments in theory, research, and practice in the field of marriage therapy. I attempt to provide my students and clients a Christian view of marriage and marriage therapy. My students and I participate in regional and national professional organizations, attending meetings and presenting our research on marriage and spirituality.

I also conduct marriage enrichment seminars at churches and retreats and do marital and pre-marital counseling at the Biola Counseling Center. My wife and I participate in missionary member care as associates of the Narramore Christian Foundation providing parenting seminars, marriage enrichment, and marriage counseling for missionaries in Europe, Asia, and South America.

At a personal level, I believe we support Christian marriages by developing and growing in our own marriage. My wife and I have been married for 36 years, have been active in teaching and leadership in our local church, and have been on short-term missions sponsored by the church. We have three married children and five grandchildren.

A number of dangers to the institution of marriage have been proposed including cohabitation, increased religious heterogeneity, dual career issues, modern mobility, increases in the length of life and others. Over the next decade, what do you believe will be the greatest risks to the institution of marriage?

I believe the single biggest threat to the institution of marriage is the continuing erosion of a commitment to marriage as a life-long relationship with one's spouse. Anything that undermines commitment to marriage as a Divine institution, designed by God to last for a lifetime, is a threat to the institution of marriage. The increasing practice of cohabitation is a significant symptom of the growing crisis in our culture's commitment to marriage. The directors of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University have identified the increasingly casual attitude toward intimate relationship commitment among young singles today as seeking "relationships without rings, sex without strings." (Popenoe & Whitehead, 2001). While erosion of commitment is multi-determined, I believe the self-centered, pleasure-oriented, individualistic, materialistic values propagated by advertising and programming in our media-saturated society are a major cause. Media influences will only grow in the next decade as powerful, new, wireless technologies extend their reach into all areas of public and private life.

At the risk of provoking questions about my patriotism, it appears evident in our time that individualistic, materialistic capitalism without the restraining influence of transcendent values and community accountability has degenerated into exploitation. No where is this exploitation more evident than in the area of human sexuality. The glorification of sexual pleasure and the sexualization of our youth culture have had a profound undermining impact on the institution of marriage. The minimalist value constraint that continues to be the slogan of sexual permissiveness is that a sexual relationship is moral if it occurs between "consenting adults." The special place that sex within a committed, adult, marital relationship once had in our culture has been virtually obliterated and the erosion will continue. Does anyone doubt the devastation sexual promiscuity has wreaked upon our culture?

The single most important resource that couples bring to a marriage is each partner's lasting commitment to the relationship. There are a number of reasons why commitment is such an essential element of enduring marriages. A primary reason is that commitment is the essential attitude that underlies each partner's motivation to invest in the marital relationship, willingness to give the relationship a central priority in one's life, and persistence in working out problems that inevitably arise in intimate relationships. The erosion of commitment of either partner negatively affects both partners. The lack of personal commitment to one's marriage undermines one's persistence and willingness to take a long-term view of the investment of effort and do whatever it takes to resolve problems and protect the relationship. When a spouse believes that his or her partner lacks a solid commitment to the relationship, he or she experiences insecurity that can undermines one's ability to be in the relationship in effective, healthy ways.

Commitment is an incredibly powerful force in coping with challenges and threats. I am writing this paper in the summer of 2002. Last month, nine coal miners in Pennsylvania were trapped 270 feet below ground for several days. The miners had been working on the wall of a new shaft when, suddenly, water began to inundate the mine. Water from an old mine shaft, whose actual location was inaccurately shown on existing maps, flooded the new shaft. After several days of frantic effort the miners were rescued. The description of one of the miner's experience during his ordeal is particularly illustrative of the power of commitment. Paul was the youngest member of the nine-man crew. He had a wife and young children waiting for him on the surface. At one point during the flooding of the shaft, Paul was trapped in the powerful current of the surging water. As he struggled against the waters' pull, he grew weary and he thought about giving up and letting the water take him down. An instant later, a voice in his head challenged this thought, "Wait a minute, you can't give up. You have a wife and three children who need you." The image of his loved one's on the surface strengthened his resolve to fight against the powerful undertow and he was able to get to the safety of higher ground and await his rescue. His commitment to his wife and children helped Paul access the strength and motivation needed to meet the challenge of the raging water. Similarly, the powerful emotional currents of relationship conflict and the cultural pull to give up on the marriage can overwhelm one's motivation to fight for one's marriage. A strong commitment to the marriage is an invaluable resource in these difficult times.

A technological development that rivals modern media as a challenge to the institution of marriage is the biogenetic revolution. Reproductive technology is challenging traditional definitions of personhood and providing alternative pathways to the creation of life, human and otherwise. A generation ago, marriage was the primary context in which the procreation of a new life was both culturally sanctioned and biologically possible. Today both of these conditions have been practically eliminated. One of the dominant reasons members of prior generations sought to get married was to have children and create a family. Parenthood within marriage was highly valued. This value is under assault. Now having children is only one reason, among many, that people marry. And having children without marriage and without a partner is now both biologically possible and morally acceptable.

While reproductive technologies have reduced the monopoly on child bearing that marriage enjoyed a generation ago, there is also evidence that there is less interest in bearing children among Americans today. This is not good for the institution of marriage. The researchers at Rutgers have called this trend a "reduction in child centeredness" that has "contributed to the weakening of the institution of marriage." The researchers (Popenoe & Whitehead, 2000) present the following evidence to support their conclusion:

In a recent cross-national comparison of industrialized nations, the United States ranked virtually at the top in the percentage disagreeing with this statement: "the main purpose of marriage is having children." Nearly 70 percent of Americans believe the main purpose of marriage is something else compared, for example, to just 51 percent of Norwegians or 45 percent for Italians. Consistent with this view is a dramatic change in our attitudes about holding marriages together for children. In a Detroit area sample of women, the proportion of women answering no to the question "Should a couple stay together for the sake of the children?" jumped from 51 percent to 82 percent between 1962 and 1985. A nationally-representative 1994 sample found only 15 percent of the population agreeing that "When there are children in the family, parents should stay together even if they don't get along."

One effect of the weakening of child centeredness is clear. A careful analysis of divorce statistics shows that, beginning around 1975, the presence of children in a marriage has become only a very minor inhibitor of divorce (slightly more so when the child is a male than female). (p. 25)

Another major threat to marriage is the erosion of the belief that a satisfying, life-long marriage to the same spouse is possible. The Rutgers researchers noted that while young adults express a desire to have a relationship with one partner that endures over time, today's singles believe that such a relationship is practically impossible to sustain. The prevalence of divorce in society is a major cause of this belief. To today's young adults, marriages are risky ventures that can end in a lot of pain and economic hardship. In this sense, divorce is a major threat to marriage. The high rate of divorce these young adults have witnessed over their life time has fostered the belief that life-long marriages are rare. While this may sound a bit like circular reasoning, it is the case that one's ability to persist in the face of challenge is greatly enhanced by the presence of others who have successfully coped with the same challenge (Bandura, 1998). The prevalence of divorce throughout their short life-time virtually insures that young people will see plenty of evidence to support the belief that marriages do not last. Many young people have experienced, first hand, the pain of their parent's divorce or have a close friend who has. Suffering from experienced or vicarious divorce trauma, today's youth are increasingly reluctant to risk marital commitment. They site the risk of divorce as a major reason for the choice to cohabit: less commitment, less risk.

Follow up: What do you believe is the cause of high levels of divorce in the Christian community today?

Having discussed the threats to the institution of marriage at length in my previous response, the answer to this question is straight forward. The pervasive cultural influences that have undermined marriage in the culture, at large, have taken their toll within the Christian community. It is ironic, in a time when we have more knowledge and resources for marriage preparation, enrichment, and intervention in the Christian community that the divorce rate among Evangelical Christians is about the same as other groups. Barna Research Group recently reported that the divorce rates for Evangelicals, Born-Again Christians, and other groups were all around 34% (Barna, 2001, August 6). The Barna Research Group report went to great lengths to demonstrate that they used rigorous criteria to identify the actual spiritual beliefs of the sub-groups they surveyed. So their findings cannot be easily dismissed as not adequately sampling active, committed, Christian believers (Barna, 2001, August 26). The proliferation of films, seminars, books and other resources on marriage within the Christian cultural milieu might well be analogous to rearranging deck chairs or showing movies on the Titanic! A more profound and pervasive systemic change within the Christian community is needed if the divorce rate among Christians, specifically, and in the culture, generally, is to be reversed.

There have been community-wide attempts to reverse the divorce trends that appear to have had some positive effects. For example, the religious leaders in Modesto, CA formulated a cooperative commitment that they would not perform a marriage without the participants agreeing to rigorous pre-marital counseling including training in communication and problem solving skills. The governor of Oklahoma has garnered national attention for his effort to reduce his state's divorce rate through a variety of efforts. There is an organization called The Coalition for Marriage, Family and Couples Education (see http://www.smartmarriages.com) that has sponsored national conferences and brought together hundreds of national marriage and family experts with a dizzying array of resources. Michael McManus (1993) has been a major advocate of programs to support and improve the stability of marriages. The National Marriage Project is a new effort located within a highly respected university (Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey) that is addressing the problem at the socio-cultural level. They have reported several studies using scientific methodologies which may serve to focus public attention on the institution of marriage, raise our consciousness regarding the seriousness of current problems and threats, and activate our resolve to address the problems at a national level.

There are indications that a movement is emerging within the Christian community that may have salutary effects on the future of the institution of marriage. I am speaking of the spiritual development movement. In theological education and in some churches there is an increasing emphasis on spiritual formation and spiritual development (e.g., see the special issue of the journal of Psychology and Theology, 2001, on Spiritual Direction). To the extent that such programs are designed to develop and form Christian character within the participants, the programs will serve as an antidote to the forces of individualism and materialism noted above. Historically, Evangelical Christian communities have focused most of their theology and practice on the salvation of the individual soul. The spiritual growth of the believer received less emphasis. What theology there was to guide the believer's spiritual growth can best described as socially, psychologically, and biologically naive (i.e., pray harder, read the Bible more, and don't sin). The practices of spiritual formation being promoted today may provide a framework to promote deeper spiritual growth of the believer in heart and mind (and thus character). Perhaps the vulnerability of the Christian community, evidenced by the high divorce rate among Christian couples, is a symptom of the weakness of the church in promoting "sanctification," the growth in character of the believer, within our communities. In the previous generation, our culture implicitly supported Christian values and our Christian communities and spiritual practices became soft and vulnerable. In today's post-Christian culture, our Christian communities must develop more robust models of discipleship that form the depth of spiritual character needed to live out one's spiritual values in an increasingly foreign culture.

David Blankenhorn recently suggested that a shift in how partners see marriage has occurred. He noted that couples today often see the partners as bigger than the marriage. In the past, partners saw the marriage, and faith or community-based commitments to marriage, as bigger than themselves. What are the consequences of this shift in values away from faith or community-based covenants?

While I have not read Blankenhorn's account of this shift, I would speculate that the shift he identifies is part of the growing individualistic materialism in our culture. Individual choice to pursue ones own pleasure is constrained only by the vague maxim, "As long as it doesn't hurt anyone else, no one can tell me what to do." At their best, community-based covenants provide the moral fabric that enables each of us to transcend our individual limitations and to find the motivation to persist in living out our marital covenants. When the community is no longer authoritative in one's life, then community-based commitments are smaller than the self. The partner's capacity to bring happiness to the self becomes the basis for the marriage commitment. A pleasure based commitment is more unstable and subject to erosion than a community-based covenant.

Zak, Fancher, Gillies, Tornatore and Waterhouse (1999) have discussed a distinction between two types of relationships that I believe is relevant to Blankenhorn's comment. The two types are communal and exchange relationships. Exchange relationships are defined by what each person in the relations provides for the other with an emphasis on the fairness of the exchange. Communal relationships are defined by the commitment each person has to the other with an emphasis on the long-term welfare of each member. Exchange relationships are focused on the fairness of short-term payoffs and communal relationships are focused on the long-term benefits. As Scott Stanley has said, "In the short run people are takers, not givers" (Personal communication). We could say that our culture has shifted in its view from marriage as a communal relationship to marriage as an exchange relationship. The consequence of this shift is that marriages will tend to be less stable over the long-term.

The Bush administration, under Wade Horn, is searching for ways to support marriages in America today. Marriage interventionists have tried to assist marriages in a variety of ways including church-based marriage enrichment, pastoral counseling, professional counseling, marriage mentoring, and pre-marital counseling. If you could make a recommendation to Wade Horn today, what would you recommend his office attempt to make a difference in marriages?

From a social science point of view, the primary threats to marriage today are sociological, not psychological. Now most of the readers of this article are likely to be Christians and, thus, object that my statement leaves out the problem of sin that is at the basis of all human misery. But the question asks for advice for a government official. I believe such advice needs to be framed in socio-political terms to be most useful.

The interventions listed in the question above are all focused at the individual level. They are good programs and can be components of a socio-political attempt to strengthen marriage but the macro-sociological dimensions also need to be addressed. Community-based programs such as the creation of marriage covenants are attempts to intervene at the community level. But such interventions are lacking in the social influence that are especially needed to reverse today's divorce trends. I believe this is because the general public perceives such community programs as being advocated by the "religious community." In the United States today, religious institutions do not have much cultural moral authority. In today's climate, I believe government programs that are perceived to be "religiously motivated" have a public relations problem that weakens their appeal and effectiveness. For this reason, I have some reservations about the President's term "faith-based" for initiatives or programs run by religious groups or institutions. I think the government should emphasize what such programs do for our communities, not who runs them. The positive contribution of Mr. Bush's initiative is the acknowledgement of the good work that "faith-based" groups are doing that has gone largely unacknowledged by the media and the public.

As Christians in the public forum, we can gain influence if we focus on goals we have in common with the culture at large. The research by the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University has shown that many of today's relationally-jaded young adults desire to have the experience of a life-long, committed, intimate relationship. Many just don't think it is possible. What is particularly troubling is that the beliefs about relationships and cohabitation reported by the young adults studied were not consistent with the scientific evidence. For example, the young adults reported that they believed cohabitation was a good way to determine if a partner was suitable for marriage. The data are very clear this is not the case. As a government official, I suggest that Mr. Horn do all he can to influence public opinion by raising public awareness about the scientific evidence about what is and is not helpful for stable, happy relationships. There is evidence regarding the benefits of stable, happy marriages, the pain caused by divorce, and the benefits gained through persisting to solve one's relational problems. Implementing a nationwide program to increase the relationship knowledge and competence of our young adults could be an important component of such a program. The basis for such a program would be both pragmatic (i.e., "research shows ....") and moral in a non-sectarian way (appealing to common virtue). It is my belief that Dr. C. Everett Koop had a profound influence on smoking behavior in the United States with such an approach. Conservationists have also had much success using the pragmatic-moral approach in raising public awareness and commitment to conservation measures. I have been particularly impressed with how the conservation message has been adopted by corporations that came to see the long-term and short-term benefits of being "green." In a similar way, perhaps such a public awareness campaign for the benefits of relationship longevity and commitment would induce media corporations to adopt marriage-friendly programs as good business.

I have recently become acquainted with a program in Chattanooga, TN that demonstrates the effective application of the principles I am advocating. The program is called First Things First and is dedicated to three primary goals: (a) to increase the involvement of fathers with their children, (b) to reduce the rate of out-of-wedlock births, and (c) to reduce the divorce rate. The leaders of this program have clearly recognized the importance of creating a broad community coalition of agencies with common values and interests to implement programs based upon credible scientific evidence of the nature of the problems and the efficacy of the solutions being proposed. First Things First is an outstanding example of how work to strengthen marriages and families can be carried out at the community level (see http://www.firstthings.org).

Follow up: What should churches be doing to support marriages in their congregation and community?

Today's Christian congregations have, by and large, a focus on the individual at both the theological and programmatic level. We need to capture the essential components of what it means to be a Christian community of believers who have relationship longevity as a core value. The most systematic proposal I have seen on how to begin to do this has peen written by Fitch (2001). Dr. Fitch is the pastor of a church in the Chicago area who has developed what he refers to as "a radical proposal for times that demand something radical." He proposes a structure for "communities for the formation of Christian marriages" in which the church, guided by a central commitment to Christian marriage, offers mentoring, programs, rituals, and teachings that support Christian marriage.

A marriage mentoring program is one way in which churches can create a community of support for marriages. Older, more experienced couples meet one-on-one with younger couples to provide support, encouragement, and a dose of reality on the joys and struggles of maintaining a life-long marriage relationship. While mentoring is an intuitively appealing concept, the logistics of implementing mentoring programs, such as the training of mentors and keeping the program staffed, are challenging, and we need data to help in assessing the effectiveness of the mentoring process.

John Gottman has proposed that training couples in communication skills is not as effective as marriage interventionists have believed. For example, he found that "master" couples who have demonstrated the ability to create a strong marriage only use the skill 4% of the time. Consequently, there is a debate among marriage interventionists about the utility and efficacy of communication skills training. Where do you fall on the current issue?

As I understand it, Gottman focuses his criticism on the practice of empathy training or reflective listening. His reasoning appears to be that because his successful couples rarely did reflective listening spontaneously in their daily lives, it is not useful as an intervention technique. I believe Gottman's criticisms of empathy training have been adequately countered in an article by Stanley, Bradbury, and Markman. (2000). The essence of their rejoinder to Gottman is that the absence of spontaneous usage of empathic listening by couples has no bearing on whether or not the technique would be effective as an intervention technique for dysfunctional marriages. In fact, empathy training can be a useful intervention for conflicted couples precisely because it gets them to communicate in a way that they do not do on their own. It is especially helpful for those couples that chronically misunderstand one another's point of view. As Markman, Stanley, and Blumberg (1994) have noted, empathic listening (they call it the Speaker/Listener Technique) is often helpful as an antidote to destructive communication patterns that predict divorce. There is adequate research evidence that some form of empathy training is a useful component of intervention with couples.

As useful as empathy training is in marital therapy, it does have limitations. Jacobson and Christensen (1996) have noted that the increased understanding promoted by empathic listening doesn't always lead to improvement in the marriage. In some cases, the result of more effective listening is that both partners develop a better understanding of why they don't get along. In addition, empathic listening is difficult for highly conflicted couples to use precisely at the times they need it most, in the heat of the battle.

John Gottman's research on marital interaction and his development of intervention strategies derived from his longitudinal research have made outstanding contributions to the field of marriage theory and therapy (Gottman, 1999). I have taken his training and use his material in my clinical work and my teaching. His Four Horseman of the Apocalypse has become common parlance among marital therapists and seminar teachers. However, his critique of empathy training is in my opinion, based on faulty logic. His position on the matter is just a small part of a brilliant corpus of scholarly work and should not be a major concern for marital therapists. My advice to marriage workers and therapists is to use empathy training when you think it will be helpful and recognize its limitations.

Explain to the readers how you integrate your faith/theology with your approach to marital intervention. How do you approach marital interventions and marital research in respect to your faith?

The primary biblical basis of my faith/practice integration in my marital therapy work is the creation account of God's divine purpose in creating man as male and female. The statements, "let us make man in our image" and "it is not good for man to be alone," communicate the essential relationality of our being as reflecting the Imago Dei (Genesis 1:24-25). The account of Adam and Eve's actions after their sins indicates the impact of sin on our relationships: fear, guilt, defensiveness, and blame (Genesis 3:1-15).

The primary psychological basis of my faith/practice integration is attachment theory. I believe attachment theory, as developed by Bowlby and Ainsworth and investigated by a host of other researchers (see Cassidy & Shaver, 2000), is a psycho-social theory that has the relationality of human beings as a central tenant, and thus, is consistent with a Biblical view of human nature. The fact that attachment theory is based on evolutionary assumptions about the origin of human relationality does not deter me from endorsing it as a very useful perspective on current human functioning.

The specific intervention framework I use draws heavily upon attachment theory. I have been greatly influenced in my clinical work by the Emotionally Focused Therapy model (EFT) of Susan Johnson and Leslie Greenberg (Greenberg & Johnson, 1988; Johnson, 1996; Johnson, 2002) and the Collaborative Couple Therapy model of Daniel Wile (Wile, 1981, 1988, 1993). Both approaches seek to create a safe environment for honest, vulnerable, respectful, and responsible relating between partners in an intimate relationship. The EFT approach encourages both the expression of needs and vulnerabilities as well as responsiveness to the needs and vulnerabilities of the partner. I see EFT as fostering love, truth, and grace (Eph. 4:15) as the core dynamics of intimate relating. It promotes ethically responsible relating consistent with the Christian practices of confession and forgiveness, giving and receiving, and weeping and rejoicing.

I value research on marital therapy a great deal. As much as is possible, I prefer to base my clinical work on techniques that have been demonstrated to be effective in comparative research studies. One of the reasons I find EFT so attractive as an intervention framework is that there is a growing body of well-done research studies that show it to be effective (see Johnson et al., 1999, for a summary).

Empirical study of Christian marriage and religious marital interventions is seriously lacking. In your opinion, what are the most important studies that need to be conducted to advance our understanding of Christian marriages and Christian marriage interventions?

The finding that divorce is as prevalent among Evangelical Christians as it is among non-Christians is nothing short of a scandal in the Body of Christ, in my opinion. The essential ethical core of the Christian faith is that we are to love one another with a sacrificial, agape, love. Our faith in Christ and our Christian commitment should clearly make a difference in how we live our lives as husbands and wives, in comparison to our secular counterparts. This obviously is not happening and we need research to understand what has gone wrong and how we can reverse this state of affairs. I would like to see research done on Christian marriage interventions at the community level, where a body of believers formulates an explicit community commitment to promote and support Christian marriages and then implements a program to put this commitment into practice. Seminars or retreats that occur once or twice a year with little or no follow-up are not likely to produce much change. Two examples of the kind of things I have in mind here are the Community for the Formation of Christian Marriages framework (Fitch, 2001) and the seminar program for promoting Christian marriages based on Harley's (1986) book, His Needs/ Her Needs (see http://www.familydynamics.net).

Both of these programs emphasize primary prevention of marital distress. We also need the development and testing of more explicitly Christian intervention strategies that draw on the best secular research to date and that use all the resources of the couples' Christian faith to help troubled relationships. I would be particularly interested in programs that emphasize both the development of individual character (spiritual formation) and the facilitation of interpersonal relational competence for the couple.

If you were to give advice to someone who is training to work with marriages, what is the key piece of advice you would like to share?

Working as a marriage therapist requires adequate understanding, professional skills, discernment, emotional and spiritual maturity, and humility. In other words, training to work with marriages requires your continued growth as a Christian professional. We have an abundance of research on clinically effective strategies for helping distressed couples. Trainees need to learn these skills and put them into practice under supervision. Marriage therapy is challenging work and difficult to do well. Marriage therapy requires competence as well as character.

Also, remember that no one is more responsible for a couple's marriage than they are. In today's climate of deteriorating marriages, Christian therapists may feel more responsible for a couple's relationship than either of them do. The unfortunate reality is that in a relationship of two, it only takes one to veto the relationship. Our role is to come along side distressed couples as consultants and guides. Each partner in a marriage is responsible of the choices he or she makes regarding the marriage. It is a privilege and a responsibility to work professionally with couples. We have an obligation to know the most effective ways to work with couples and learn to implement these approaches. In the end, however, it is the commitment of each person to the relationship that will affect the counseling outcome the most; only each partner can make and keep such a commitment.

REFERENCES

Bandura, A. (1998). Self-efficacy theory. San Francisco: Bruner/Mazel Inc.

Barna, G. (2001, August 6). Born again adults less likely to co-habit, just as likely to divorce. From http://www.barna.org

Cassidy J. & Shaver, P.R (2000). Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications. New York: Guilford.

Fitch, D. (2001). Communities for the formation of Christian marriages: A radical proposal for times that demand something radical. Unpublished Manuscript.

Gottman, J. M. (1999). The marriage clinic: A scientifically based marital therapy. New York: Norton.

Greenberg, L. & Johnson, S. (1988). Emotionally focused couple therapy. New York: Guilford.

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McManus, M. J. (1993). Marriage savers: Helping your friends and family avoid divorce. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.

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Stanley, S. M., Bradbury, T. N., & Markman, H. J. (2000). Structural flaws in the bridge from basic research on marriage to interventions for couples. Journal of Marriage Fr the Family, 62, 256-264.

Wile, D. (1993). After the fight: A night in the life of a couple. New York: Guilford Press.

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Zak, A, Fancher, T, Gillies, M., Tornatore, E. & Waterhouse, E. (1999). The influence of insecurity on exchange and communal intimates. North American Journal of Psychology, 1, 103-108.

AUTHOR

EDWARDS, KEITH J. Address: Rosemead School of Psychology, 13800 Biola Avenue, La Mirada, CA 90639. Title: Professor of Psychology, Licensed Psychologist. Degrees: MA & PhD, New Mexico State University; PhD, University of Southern California. Specializations: Psychology of religion, clinical psychology, and research methodology.

Correspondence concerning this article may be addressed to Keith J. Edwards, PhD, Rosemead School of Psychology, 138110 Biola Ave., La Mirada, CA 90639. Email:[email protected]

Keith J. Edwards

Rosemead School of Psychology

Biola University