Intended Audience
The psychology department welcomes Professor Brian Doss '97 as the third speaker in its 2022-2023 lecture series: The Psychology of Close Relationships.
In the United States, one third of married couples are distressed and almost half of first marriages (and more than half of unmarried cohabiting relationships) end in divorce/separation. In this talk, Doss will describe why relationship distress is so detrimental to not only our overall happiness but also to our mental health, our physical health, and to our children’s well-being. For decades, couple therapy has been the leading intervention to help couples solve relationship problems; Doss will review common approaches to couple therapy and the evidence of their effectiveness. Then, he will transition to digital couple interventions, which offer the potential to reduce both logistical and financial barriers to couple therapy while maintaining substantial efficacy. Doss will describe the leading digital couple interventions and review their effectiveness. Finally, he will present some of the emerging technological advances that offer the potential to expand both the scale and effectiveness of these programs.
Brian Doss is a professor of psychology at the University of Miami and director of the OurRelationship program. His research focuses on ways to use digital technologies to improve couples’ romantic relationships – with a special focus on low-income couples, couples in which one person is a veteran or active-duty service member, and couples in which one person is a breast cancer survivor. He has received grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). Doss teaches undergraduate and graduate classes on couple therapy and romantic relationships. His research is focused on ways to increase the reach of couple interventions, including online interventions (www.OurRelationship.com), apps, and a self-help book titled "Reconcilable Differences." His research has been cited on "The Today Show," CNN, MSNBC, in The New York Times, The Miami Herald, and elsewhere.
Free and open to the public.
This event may be used to satisfy the Lecture Reflection Requirement in PSYC206 and PSYC493/494.