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In this article, we propose the vulnerability cycle as a construct for understanding and working with couples' impasses. We expand the interactional concept of couples' reciprocal patterns to include behavioral and subjective dimensions, and articulate specific processes that trigger and maintain couples' entanglements. We consider the vulnerability cycle as a nexus of integration in which "vulnerabilities" and "survival positions" are key ideas that bring together interactional, sociocultural, intrapsychic, and intergenerational levels of meaning and process. The vulnerability cycle diagram is presented as a tool for organizing information. We suggest a therapeutic approach for deconstructing couples' impasses and facilitating new patterns through deliberate modes of questioning, a freeze-frame technique, stimulation of calmness and reflection, separating present from past, and elicitation of alternative meanings, behaviors, empathy, and choice. This approach encourages the therapist and couple to work collaboratively in promoting change and resilience.
Fam Proc 43:279-299, 2004
INTRODUCTION
Couples often come to therapy polarized by reactivity and power struggles that make them feel increasingly disconnected. Trapped in impasses that they are unable to change on their own, they invite the therapist into the intimacy of their struggles, hoping for a new direction. In this article, we focus on these moments of reactivity and impasse in couples' relationships. We propose a vulnerability model to understand the complex interactions and experience of the couple caught up in an impasse. The construct of the vulnerability cycle presented here works as a nexus that integrates interactional, sociocultural, intrapsychic, and intergenerational aspects of couples' relationships. We describe a therapeutic approach that helps to identify the couple's pattern and investigate and challenge emotional undercurrents that might be fueling and informing their dynamics. In working with couples' impasses in the here and now, the goal is to help the partners move from reactive to more dialogical positions (Fishbane, 1998), and from a view of themselves as victim and villain to positions of increased responsibility and personal agency. The process of change is facilitated by awareness, behavioral changes and negotiations, and the creation of alternative narratives based on greater empathy and connectedness. This model can be applied to a variety of couples married and unmarried, heterosexual and gay from diverse cultural backgrounds.
The literature of couple and family therapy has long recognized the importance...