Marriage and family therapy treats emotional disorders in terms of the interdependent relationships among members. The marriage or family system is thought of as a unit with properties that reach beyond the sum of the personal qualities of the individuals who make it up. Usually, one person in a family or marriage is more troubled; his or her symptoms are more pronounced. The husband tends to feel his wife has "the problem," or vice versa. Mother and father feel that little Richard is "the problem." However, therapists believe that the problems experienced and expressed by the "sick" person are really signs that something is wrong with the whole system. A "heart problem" is frequently part of a larger problem, such as poor diet or excessive stress, and the same is true for couples or families. One person's distress tells the therapist that, often, something is troubling both husband and wife or all the members of a family. This interdependence between partners of a marriage or members of a family system frequently leads to a complex situation in which emotional difficulties are contagious, one person's improvement is connected with another's getting worse, or treating one person separately draws the members of a relationship apart. One of the very difficult problems troubled couples or families face is that emotional disturbance can often "spread." Repeatedly, therapists observe that there is a kind of subtle transmission from one generation to the next of inner conflicts and difficulties in coping with life. And beyond this, there are intimate connections between the emotional makeup and emotional balance of married partners or family members. For example, it is all too common for the partner of a chronically depressed person also to fall into a serious depression. Marriage and family therapists are therefore inclined to see the emotional disturbance of one member in terms of a troubled, ineffective pattern of interaction. Because of their close ties, sometimes one person's behavior, attitudes, or feelings get better while another family member develops new symptoms or problems. We will look at a real example of this in a moment. Marriage and family therapists have noticed that, when one person in a marriage or family is treated separately, the family members frequently are drawn apart instead of brought closer {196} together. Therefore, therapists generally feel it is essential to see husband and wife together or to involve both parents and children in therapy.