The present study investigated the impact of delayed, written feedback upon the process and outcome of brief group psychotherapy for married couples. A two-group, two-stage design was employed. Prior to the therapy stage, each group participated in a four session, placebo stage. Subsequently, the control group received couple-group therapy. At the same time, members of the experimental group participated in equivalent therapy and received written feedback consisting of self, peer, and therapist ratings on variables selected from a Post Session Questionnaire. Generally, results supported the hypotheses: Feedback variables showed more significant changes in expected directions than did the nonfeedback variables; therapy plus feedback, in contrast to therapy alone, led to the assessment of greater behavioral change; therapy plus feedback was a more effective tool than therapy alone for increasing the degree of congruence between self and peer ratings, and between self and therapist ratings; members of the experimental group perceived con-1 This investigation is part of a research project conducted at the Mental Health Study Center, NIMH, Adelphi, Maryland. This study also represents work completed in partial fulfillment of the Ph.D. degree in Human Development at the University of Maryland by the first author under the guidance of thesis and research advisors. Special thanks are due to Donald S. Rae for computer programming and to Cathy D. Sigman, Karen M. Sheehan, and Teresa J. Bowers for preparing the manuscript. Tables showing mean values ± standard deviations for all Post Session Questionnaire variables are available.
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