Behavioral couples’ therapy has a long history of success with couples and is an
empirically validated treatment for marital discord (Task Force on Promotion and Dissemination
of Psychological Procedures, 1995). However, only about 50% of all couples in treatment
experience long-term change (2 years). One of the founders of behavioral couples’ therapy called
for the therapy to return to its original roots in functional analysis (Jacobson, 1997). This
produced integrative behavioral couples’ therapy. As behavioral couples’ therapy attempts to
reach the maximum number of couples possible, we believe further attention to behavior analytic
principles will continue to contribute to advances in the field. We propose that an operational
analysis of forgiveness will help to strengthen behavioral couples’ therapy by creating a direct
module to handle some of the most entrenched situations, those commonly referred to as betrayal.
Key words: Couples therapy, forgiveness, betrayal, intimacy, behavior training, self control
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