African American Couples in the 21st Century: Using Integrative Systemic Therapy (IST) to Translate Science into Practice

• Published date: 01 September 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12478
• Date: 01 September 2019
• Author: Anthony L. Chambers

African American Couples in the 21

st

Century: Using

Integrative Systemic Therapy (IST) to Translate

Science into Practice

ANTHONY L. CHAMBERS*

The complexity of the African American community in the United States continues to

evolve. The growing number of professional African Americans who grew up in the post-

civil rights era combined with the persistent reminders of inequity paints a complex

backdrop for understanding African American relationships. The majority of our knowl-

edge about African American couples disproportionately comes from nonclinical social

science fields such as sociology and demography. Unfortunately, the scholarly literature

on how to work with African American couples is relatively scant. This paper seeks to

add to this limited literature by providing clinicians and scholars with a proposed set of

issues to consider when conceptualizing and treating African American couples. In par-

ticular, the complexity and nuance needed to work with African American couples are

best done by using an integrative model. Thus, this paper will discuss how the Integra-

tive Systemic Therapy (IST) model is particularly well suited for working with African

American couples. This paper will summarize the science on African American mar -

riages with a focus on salient factors such as gender, SES, and trust , which will then be

translated into clinical practice by utilizing a case example. The case example will be of

a middle-class couple in order to delineate the challenges and the growing heterogeneity

of African Americans. The article will conclude with a commentary on the evolving

heterogeneity of African Americans, which sheds light on how an integrative perspec tive

is important for disentangling and embracing the growing complexity of African

American couples.

Keywords: African American marriage; African American couples; Couples therapy;

Integrative therapy; Integrative systemic therapy; Middle class

Fam Proc 58:595–609, 2019

THE NEED FOR INTEGRATIVE APPROACHES TO UNDERSTANDING AFRICAN

AMERICAN COUPLES: TRANSLATING SCIENCE INTO PRACTICE

In a thoughtful analysis of African American marriages in the 20

th

century, Elaine

Pinderhughes (2002) described many of the problems facing African American cou-

ples. Nearly two decades later, there continues to be a plethora of articles describing

the causes, trends, and consequences of marital challenges among African Americans

*The Family Institute, Center for Applied Psychological and Family Studies, and Department of Psychology,

Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Anthony Chambers, The Family Institute

at Northwestern University, 618 Library Place, Evanston, IL 60201. E-mail: a-chambers@northwester-

n.edu.

I would like to give special thanks to Bill Pinsof, who provided very helpful feedback on an earlier

version of this manuscript.

595

Family Process, Vol. 58, No. 3, 2019 ©2019 Family Process Institute

doi: 10.1111/famp.12478