This study is a qualitative exploration of the therapeutic process occurring in a solution‐focused therapy session. A complete one‐session solution‐focused marital therapy case conducted by Bill O'Hanlon was analyzed using conversation analysis. Conversation analysis is a method of data analysis that describes how language is used to elicit new constructions of reality; it offers descriptive categories useful to both clinicians and researchers. Through intense examination of the communications of the therapist, wife, and husband, nine categories of linguistic strategies used by O'Hanlon in his pursuit of solution‐focused conversation are developed. Implications of these strategies for the field are discussed.

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The Marital Status Inventory (MSI), a measure of divorce potential was given to couples in six independent samples. Scores from the five clinical sites and one marital enrichment sample (N = 241 couples) were used to provide adequate reliability, discriminant validity and predictive validity data. Compound probability for the five clinical sites supports the contention that, overall, wives' are more distressed than their husbands. The MSI was also able to identify couples who later divorced. However, the Guttman properties of the MSI, previously identified, were not replicated. Clinical implications of the higher wives' scores for prediction of divorce and marital therapy are discussed.