To Arrive Where We Began: A Reappraisal of Cognition in Marriage and in Marital Therapy

The explosion of research on cognition in marriage and in marital therapy has had little impact on everyday interventions with couples. To examine how research can contribute more directly to clinical practice, the evolution of marital cognition research is traced and its contribution to enhancing marital therapy is evaluated. Although several desid-erata are offered to improve current research on cognitive interventions, it is concluded that a more complete understanding of the role of cognition in marriage and marital therapy requires reappraisal of the assumptions made about cognition. An analysis is therefore offered of the domain of cognition, and its implications for evaluating the efficacy of cognitive interventions are outlined. "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here? " "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to, " said the Cat. Alice in Wonderland Marital and family therapists recognized long ago the importance of cognitive factors such as expectations and interpretations in the generation, maintenance, and alleviation of relationship dysfunction (e.g., Dicks, 1953). In fact, Wile (1981, p. 3) noted that "The need to challenge fantasy based The authors are grateful to John Grych and Susan Gano for their critical comments on an earlier draft of this article and to members of the Marital and Family Studies group at the University of Illinois for stimulating discussion of the issues addressed in this article. Preparation of this articl