A Qualitative Review Of Relationship Maintenance Strategies Used In Couple’s Counseling

Abstract

There is minimal research to be found on relationship maintenance strategies as a method of treatment for romantic relationships in couples’ therapy. This phenomenological qualitative study analyzes the use of researched relationship maintenance strategies by licensed professional counselors in order to better understand the implications of these strategies in therapy treatment. A sample small size of four participants were identified as licensed professional counselors, 3 of which were currently practicing. Each participant was interviewed about their experiences counseling couples in romantic relationships and interviews were analyzed to discover the prevalence of relationship maintenance strategies being used by professional counselors in treatment of romantic relationships. Overarching themes that emerged from the data include: clinician’s perceived gap between relationship maintenance and repair, overlap of repair and maintenance, influence of relationship patterns on integration of relationship maintenance, and willingness to apply and broad applicability of relationship maintenance. One of the main findings found that there was a significant overlap of what clinician’s identified as conflict resolution and what researchers identified as relationship maintenance strategies. Implications for further research are discussed below.