How Things Work - Doha Academy of Tertiary Studies

BOX 3.4. a study of Marital counseling
Seals studied the conceptions of gender issues in marital therapy as illuminated
in an actual case, that of Pete and Lisa, who had come to two of his
colleagues for help with marital problems. He used one of their videotaped
sessions with them as an exhibit to begin his dissertation research.
Interested in four theoretical orientations (psychoanalytic, family systems,
behavioral, and existential-experiential), Seals hoped to make a theoretical
contribution to counseling theory. Following his reading of Glaser
and Strauss (1967) and impressed with their constant comparative method,
he chose to follow a deliberately incremental approach to design and data
gathering, particularly in introducing existing theory progressively through
the study. Some people call that approach “progressive focusing” (Parlett
and Hamilton, 1977).
He invited the participation of 16 marital therapists, selected so as to
have four of each theoretical orientation. He had each therapist watch the
tape as if they might be called in to help the counselor, then to prepare an
assessment of problems and suggestions for assistance. He eventually interviewed
each therapist, giving little focus to gender issues. The transcripts
ran to 600 pages.
To work incrementally, he worked first only with the eight behavioral
and existential-experiential therapists, interpreting their responses. Seals
also employed a colleague to evaluate his ongoing interpretation of transcripts,
looking particularly for omissions, additions, and distortions. Her
comments were included in the data set as it moved through subsequent
stages. Seals produced two synopses of the psychoanalytic and existentialexperiential
data, one an interpretive story of lifelong emergence of gender
issues, tracing Pete and Lisa from the present on back to courtship
and families of origin. The other was a taxonomy of therapeutic allusions
emerging from the observations.
The eight therapists provided a comprehensive overview of gender
issues in marital counseling, concluding that Pete and Lisa were experiencing
predictable conflicts between men and women with normal gender
roles in intimate relationships.
Seals was ready for further complication. He went on to the third group
of four, the psychoanalytic, repeating the procedure but changing questions
to address possible gaps in previous interpretations. Subsequently, the
marital conflict appeared more to be something of a search for protection,
searched separately by Pete and Lisa, after having faced inadequate gender
identification in family-of-origin problems. The fourth sample did not add
anything new. Although his two grand interpretations were at odds, Seals
included both views in his conclusions.
Source: Based on Seals (1985).
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