Interpersonal Perception in Female Versus Male Initiators of Psychotherapy

There is considerable amount of reasearch which indicates that in any type of relationship, the person who is first to seek therapy is not necess­arily the more disturbed member. In marriage, it is found that the wife more frequently initiates and is more willing to be involved in therapy, than the husband. The present research compared two comparative groups of married couples, in one the females were the initiators of psychothe­rapy, (F1 group), and in the other the males were the initiators of psy­chotherapy (M1 group). It was hypothesized that the M1 group would have greater perceptual incongruency than the F1 group. The underlying as­ assumption was that the males in the M1 group were engaging in atypical role behaviour, which is often associated with marital maladjustment. Thus, the martially maladjustd group would also be the group with greater percep­tual incongruency. Besides answering a biographical questionnaire, the subjects were also required to check the Leary Interpersonal Check List (ICL), for perception of the "Self" and "Spouse".