Valutare la psicoterapia di coppia. Tradizioni di ricerca a confronto

[Autom. eng. transl.] The paper proposes a classification scheme of research on couple treatments starting from four main research traditions, oriented respectively to the study of efficacy-ineffectiveness (research on outcomes); early leaving (dropout search); of indications (research on manual treatments); efficiency (process research). The questions that lead to each of these traditions can be formulated in this order: does couple therapy work? What anticipates its premature abandonment? For whom and for which disorders does it work? More generally, how does couple therapy work? Each tradition shows the underlying purposes and the main results achieved to date, but also the limits, as well as the challenges to which the various traditions are subjected. The overlaps of the classification proposed with other taxonomies are also reported, both on an empirical-methodological basis, and on a historical basis. The overview closes with an overview of what can currently be considered the most promising areas in the evaluation of this particular kind of care. These are the traditions aimed at the study of microprocesses able to reveal what in literature is alternatively called proximal effect, event of change, mediator of change or, more traditionally, common factor and, more recently, empirically supported therapy relationship. This serves to introduce the working methodology of our research into the theme of the couple relationship that will be the subject of a forthcoming contribution.