The Outcome of Maritally Focused Psychotherapy offered as a Possible Model for Marital Psychotherapy Outcome Studies

Abstract. A model for describing and judging change in a couple relationship is set out, drawing on a follow‐up method established at the Tavistock Clinic for the assessment of change in individual patients. We present the follow‐up work done with the couple in the chronological order in which it occurred. Our aim is to show how a psychodynamic formulation of a relationship can be made by using the concept of the shared unconscious phantasy as a factor which describes and justifies treating separate individuals as part of a single system. We suggest that such a framework provides an economic method of formulating a base from which to assess change.