Common Factors of Change in Couple Therapy Sean D. Davis Alliant International University Jay L. Lebow Family Institute at Northwestern University Douglas H. Sprenkle Purdue University Though it is clear from meta-analytic research that couple therapy works well, it is less clear how couple therapy works. Efforts to attribute change to the unique ingredients of a particular model have consistently turned up short, leading many researchers to suggest that change is due to common factors that run through different treatment approaches and settings. The purpose of this article is to provide an empirically based case for several common factors in couple therapy, and discuss clinical, training, and research implications for a common factors couple therapy paradigm. Critical distinctions between model-driven and common factors paradigms are also discussed, and a moderate common factors approach is proposed as a more useful alternative to an extreme common factors approach. Keywords: couple therapy; common factors; outcome research AS DISCUSSED IN THE introduction to this special section (Halford & Snyder, 2012-this issue), the efficacy of couple therapy is well established. What is less clear, however, is how couple therapy works. Data suggest that successful couple therapy consists of a complex interaction of numerous pantheoretical variables, and initial findings indi- cate that these variables account for far more variance than the unique contributions of any particular model (Sprenkle & Blow, 2004). A more thorough understanding of these pantheore- tical variables, generally referred to as “common factors,” how and when they are activated and how they are woven into empirically based, model-driven treatment could greatly simplify and refine couple therapy research and training, and ultimately maximize the effectiveness of couple therapy. While the data point to the importance of common factors, much of the relevant research in couple therapy has yet to be done. Nevertheless, enough data exist to make a strong case for the ideas presented in this article. The purpose of this article is to outline the main tenets of a common factors paradigm, provide an overview of what is known about the common factors, and to outline research, training, and clinical implications. Interested readers can find a more in-depth discussion of these issues in Sprenkle, Davis, and Lebow (2009). Common Factors and Model-Driven Change: Two Paradigms of How Couples Change The common factors paradigm stands as an alternative to the model-driven change paradigm. Though we believe there are significant differences between the two paradigms, we also acknowledge that polarizing two paradigms overemphasizes differences and underemphasizes similarities. We outline below what we see as the polarities of these two paradigms, and discuss later our preferred “moderate ” common factors approach. The Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Behavior Therapy 43 (2012) 36 – 48 www.elsevier.com/locate/bt Address correspondence to Sean D. Davis, Alliant International University, Marital and Family Therapy, 2030 West El Camino Avenue, Suite 200, Sacramento, CA 95833; e-mail: sdavis2@alliant.edu. 0005-7894/xx/xxx-xxx/$1.00/0 © 2011 Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.