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Article Excerpt
ABSTRACT
An expanded conceptualization of the dialogal research methodology was used to gain a deeper understanding of the dyadic experience of Being a couple. Twenty-two committed couples from a variety of backgrounds were interviewed, responding to the question: "What does it mean to 'Be' a couple?" The interviews were videotaped, allowing the researchers to engage with both verbal and nonverbal interpersonal expression. The authors describe the dialogal process used, and identify and discuss three core themes expressed by the couples regarding the meaning of being a couple: commitment, morphogenesis, and transcending paradox through witness.
This project evolved out of weekly meetings that we, a group of independent practitioners, began as a consult regarding the couples we saw as clients. The group, trained in phenomenological psychology and/or marriage and family therapy, works with couples as part of their clinical practice. Originally the group started with three of us, grew to four, and, after the first year, back to three, as Susanne Wichert had to step out of the project for health reasons. At the time of writing, our group (George Sayre, Deborah Lambo, and Heather Navarre), consists of one married 25 years, one in a committed relationship for 13 years, and one married 22 years. As we related our own experiences of couples in therapy, we found that often those we see in couples' counseling experience themselves as individuals rather than as a couple. As George observed, "The people we see don't experience themselves as a couple. If you ask 'what do you think your marriage needs?' some couples have a great deal of trouble: they talk as individual, can't see selves as 'we,' then we collude with them and do the same thing."
We wondered how we could better understand those couples that experience themselves as a "we"; neither individual nor the sum of parts. Our inquiry evolved as we attempted to come up with a way of getting at the essential experience, the lived experience of being a couple: in other words, "What does it mean to Be a couple?"
A Brief Review of the Literature
Out of our discussions about couples, we wondered whether couples qua couples had been researched before. Four traditions within the psychological literature address aspects of being a couple: the social, family, couples, and phenomenological. While each has contributed something of use, a review of the literature shows that none of these traditions has yet to answer the question in a manner consistent with our concern.
Social psychology understands being a couple as a social behavior pattern, defined in legal, (marriage/betrothal) and developmental (family life span) terms (Baumeister, 2005; Fiske, 2004). Although this perspective has generated a great deal of research addressing issues such as mate selection and cohabitation patterns within populations, it has not approached the basic question of what it means to be a couple from a phenomenological vantage.
Family psychology, grounded in systems theory (Kaslow, 2001), has developed a methodology and language that allows the relationship itself to be the phenomenon of inquiry. This perspective conceptualizes human relationships as dynamic systems defined by the rules and roles that govern the functioning of its members.
The strength of a systemic perspective is that it rejects the individualistic perspective of traditional psychology, thus allowing us to perceive relationships as entities. A weakness of this perspective is that it is grounded in the natural science paradigm. Human relationships, from a systemic perspective, are qualitatively the same as any other living system; whether it is a wolf pack, a hive of bees, or the ecosystem of tide pools. All strive toward homeostasis through similar feedback processes. This is not to deny that many family theorists have integrated a distinctly humanistic perspective with systems theory. Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy (1965), Carl Whittaker (Napier & Whittaker, 1978), and Virginia Satir (1988) are among the best known of the many that have done so. However, the systemic theory itself remains grounded in the natural science paradigm and this is most evident when one attempts to do research; for while the systemic perspective provides a useful means for studying the functioning of couples, it does not address issues of meaning and lived experience (Mook, 1985).
Similarly, couples therapy, has generated several models that either implicitly (Greenberg & Johnson, 1988) or explicitly (Fishbane, 1998) integrate an existential perspective with systemic or communication focused model. However, these clinical perspectives have not lead to phenomenological research with couples.
Reflecting the influence of Merleau Ponty's phenomenology of intersubjectivity, and dialogal philosophers such as Martin Buber (Friedman, 1996; Halling, Leifer & Rowe, 2006) and Emmanuel Levinas (Kunz, 1998; Gannt, 2002), phenomenological psychology has become increasingly interested in exploring the phenomenon of relationships. In addition, phenomenological psychology has addressed philosophical issues underlying family systems theory, notably Bertha Mook's work on the family as an intersubjective community (Mook, 1989). Nonetheless, the research methodology of phenomenological psychology continues to focus primarily on individuals. The few phenomenological psychology studies that have had couples as participants have addressed the specific aspects of their experience (Alderson, 2004; Appleton & Bohm, 2001; Crothers & Dokecki, 1989; Schullo & Alperson, 1984) and not the fundamental question, "What does it mean to Be a couple?"
Dialogal Research
Since the inquiry grew out of a consult group and emerged in dialogue, we chose a methodology that allowed us to deepen the process of discovery as a group. Dialogal research, our chosen protocol, is a "method ... guided by an attitude of openness to the phenomenon as it presents itself and to one's own interaction with it rather than by a series of preconceived steps and ideas" (Rowe, Halling, Davies, Powers, & van Bronkhorst, 1989, p. 237). Developed at Seattle University by Steen Halling, Michael Leifer and Jan Rowe (2006), dialogal research intentionally grounds the phenomenological inquiry in the process of dialogue.
Rooted in the dialogal phenomenology of Stephan Strasser and Emmanuel Levinas and the anthropological/dialogal existentialism of Martin Buber, (Halling et al., 2006) dialogal research reflects the lived experience of relationships. Dialogal methodology utilizes the group process as a means of exploring the data. The conversations of the group, including the interpersonal interaction in response to...
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