In the largest randomized clinical trial ever done in marriage therapy, the researchers had each therapist treat half their clients the usual way, which is to ask how they were doing. For the other half of the clients, the therapists handed out the same scales I use in my work with clients. The results were dramatic. At the end of therapy, only 10% of couples in the verbal inquiry condition said that both of them were happy. However, 40% of couples in the objective feedback condition said that both of them were happy at the end of therapy. Of course, the real test is whether the couple stayed together or not. If the couple were able to give objective feedback to the therapist, they had half the separation rate of the couples who did not give objective feedback, 6 months after therapy ended. (See references below).

Similar results were found in another study, where half the couples responded to the scales to give objective feedback and the other half were treated with verbal inquiry. 3 times as many couples in the feedback condition had clinically significant improvement by the end of the study, compared to the couples where the therapist asked how things were going.

So, depending on how you look at the data, when a therapist hands out the scales, the effectiveness of couples therapy is doubled, tripled, or even quadrupled. The good news is that I use the same process of measurement that has been shown to markedly increase the chances of you being happy as a couple, and staying together.