A Systemic Review of Couple Therapy Research in Greater China

Objective: This article aims to explore the development of scholarly articles relating to couple therapy in Greater China in academic journals in the past four decades between 1976 and 2016.

Method: This review analyzes 278 couple therapy articles with a focus on the question of “who are the authors?” and “what kinds of articles published?” 

Results: The volume of Taiwan, Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau articles are 90, 88, 64, and 0, respectively; 190 of them are group authorship, and the first research was published in 1984. Women are 3 times more likely than men to be the key target group, and almost two third of the works are identified as academic-led research.

Conclusions: Indigenization of couple therapy research in Greater China with reference to its social and political context is addressed. The motto is, “think global but act local and promote the local to inform the global.”