Prof. Dr. Donald Baucom

Donald H. Baucom is a Clinical Psychologist and is one of the most prolific researchers to study cognitive-behavioral couple therapy, which he founded. Together with Kristina Gordon and Douglas Snyder he has created a useful method that integrates cognitive behavioral and insight-oriented couple therapy to help couples deal with infidelity.

„In terms of applied work, I am involved in a number of treatment outcome studies of marital interventions with more to come in the near future. I am currently completing a 10-year longitudinal study exploring the impact of a prevention program for engaged couples. Based on the findings from that study, my graduate students and I have just developed a new prevention program for engaged couples, which also takes into account an expanded models of marital functioning in our recent book on couple therapy (Epstein & Baucom, 2002). Recently, with other colleagues I have completed a pilot study exploring an intervention we developed for assisting married couples where there has been an extramarital affair. I am involved with collaborators on other treatment studies, applying couple-based interventions focused on health issues. For example, we are near completion of a five-year study to see if we can use a couple approach to help pregnant women quit smoking, a major public health problem. I continue to be involved in basic research on marriage, primarily from a cognitive-behavioral perspective. This includes projects such as understanding how persons negotiate normal individual differences between spouses, evaluating how well people think in relationship terms and implications for marriage, the role of social support in marital functioning, the impact of a partner being emotionally overinvolved in the other person’s problems or the role of positive individual functioning in relationships.”

Selected Publications

Epstein, N., & Baucom, D.H. (2002). Enhanced cognitive-behavioral therapy for couples: A contextual approach. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Gordon, K.C., Baucom, D.H., & Snyder, D.K. (2000). The use of forgiveness in marital therapy. In M. McCullough, K.I. Pargament, & C.E. Thoresen (Eds.), Forgiveness: Theory, research, and practice (pp. 203-227). New York: Guilford Press.

Baucom, D.H., & Epstein, N. (1990). Cognitive behavioral marital therapy. New York: Brunner/Mazel.