Introduction
Although it is becoming more common for psychotherapists to interview married partners together, there are no orthodox procedures for the treatment of a marriage. In fact there is no formal description of pathological marriages and therefore no theory of what changes must be brought about. The psychodynamic approach, or role theory emphasis, leads to discussions of the individual problems of husband and wife and not to descriptions of the marital relationship.The emphasis here will be upon types of relationship in marriage, but no attempt will be made to present a full exposition of the complexities of marriage; the focus will be upon marital distress and symptom formation. After a description of certain types of relationship, there will be a discussion of the kinds of conflicts which arise, and finally a description of ways a marriage therapist intervenes to produce shifts in