Increasing Relationship Satisfaction with Premarital Couples Using Art Therapy
Graduation Date
Spring 2015
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Document Form
Degree Name
Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy
Degree Granting Institution
Notre Dame de Namur University
Program Name
Art Therapy
Dean
John Lemmon, PhD
First Reader
Amy Backos, PhD, ATR-BC
Second Reader
Richard Carolan, EdD, ATR-BC
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate how a Bowen Family Systems Art therapy approach can be used with premarital couples in counseling. Literature explores that healthy marriages are beneficial for a couple's physical and mental health. The hypothesis of the study stated that premarital couples who participated in the study would show an increase in satisfaction as measured by pre measures and analysis of the participants’ artwork and post-session questionnaire. The author presented the results of an increase in satisfaction by analyzing the Couples Satisfaction Index [CSI] (Funk. Rogge, 2007) and Happiness and Satisfaction Measure (Koo, Algoe, Wilson & Gilbert, 2008) and by measuring the participant’s artwork and post session questionnaires.