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The needs of the couple responding to illness

This special edition of the Journal was developed around ideas we originally published last year as a handbook for clinicians who were not sexual and relationship therapists, but who were nonetheless working with couples (patients and their partners) through illness, injury, birth and death (d’Ardenne & Morrod, 2003). Our thinking evolved from the work of One Plus One (One Plus One, 2001) who found that health professionals needed additional training to help couples who were facing crises in their lives—sometimes precipitated by illness, but who also were able to use heath care settings as an opportunity for change and decision making. Volume 19.3 was commissioned in response to clinicians in the field who needed an update on the impact of childbirth, illness, injury, and dying and its impact on the couple and their relationship—as well as the effects of one or both of the couple being in hospital, community or domestic healthcare settings. This edition will look at couples from the perspective of the therapist needing to understand these issues in the context of receiving referrals from health professionals. Ayles and Reynolds (2001) found that health professionals were regularly exposed to couple difficulties, and that many workers felt confident about dealing with minor problems. They were far less certain, however, about more serious difficulties they met in their work setting. Ayles and Reynolds (2001) also found that health workers made few direct referrals to sexual and relationship therapists; they most commonly asked the couple to self-refer to Relate. Health workers typically reported that they themselves did not refer because they had too little knowledge of counselling and psychotherapy services. Furthermore, they maintained very little contact with couple services even when referral was made. Counselling services did not communicate much with health workers, mainly for reasons of confidentiality, although both groups reported that they wanted more communication. Health workers were very aware of the impact of the couple relationship on health outcomes, and One Plus One began a successful UK training programme called ‘Brief Encounters’ (Morrod, 2002). Deirdre Morrod is a physician and trainer at One Plus One, a National Marriage and Partnership Research Body, who has written the Brief Encounters training course for health professionals working with couples with relationship difficulties, and needing to know how and when to refer to relationship therapists. Brief Encounters began to train health workers to work more assertively with the couple, and to make more appropriate referrals to