The Couples Helping Exercise: (Barker & Lemle, 1984, 1987)

The Couples Helping Exercise (CHE) was designed to engage two participants in a supportive or help-intended interaction. A discloser reveals a personal problem to a listener, who is either instructed to listen as he or she normally would or trained to elicit particular helping behaviors. The method has been used extensively in research in supportive, marital, nonverbal, listening, and health communication contexts. This profile reviews several variations in the Couples Helping Exercise that have occurred throughout its history of use, including the participants used, the topics and procedures of the exercise, and the independent and dependent variables that have been analyzed. The profile concludes with a discussion of the strengths and limitations of this procedure.