Research Interests

• Assessment and interventions with couples and families
• Psychotherapy process and outcome research
• Objective personality assessment and test development

Dr. Snyder’s research emphasizes the assessment, treatment, and prevention of couple relationship distress. Assessment research has centered on the Marital Satisfaction Inventory, a multidimensional measure of relationship accord now published in several languages and used worldwide. Dr. Snyder’s treatment research emphasizes approaches to tailoring therapy to specific partner and relationship characteristics, integrating strengths of cognitive, behavioral, emotion-focused, and insight-oriented interventions. Dr. Snyder’s specific clinical and research interests focus on treating difficult couples with emotional, behavioral, and health problems that complicate relationship distress.

Recent Publications

Balderrama-Durbin, C., Stanton, K., Snyder, D. K., Cigrang, J. A., Talcott, G. W., Slep, A. M. S., & Heyman, R. E (2017). The risk for marital infidelity across a year-long deployment. Journal of Family Psychology, 31, 629-634.

Margola, D., Donato, S., Accordini, M., Emery, R. E., & Snyder, D. K. (2018). Dyadic coping in couple therapy process: An exploratory study. Family Process, 57, 324-341.

Snyder, D. K., Heyman, R. E., Haynes, S. N., Carlson, C., & Balderrama-Durbin, C. (2019). Couple and family assessment. In B. H. Fiese (Ed.), APA handbook of contemporary family psychology: Vol. 3. Family therapy and training (pp. 35-51). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Gordon, K. C., Amer, Z., Lenger, K. A., Brem, M. J., Baucom, D. H., & Snyder, D. K. (2019). Forgiveness and the dark side of intimate relationships: Infidelity, intimate partner violence, and divorce. In E. L. Worthington & N. G. Wade (Eds.), Handbook of forgiveness (2nd ed.). (pp. 153-164). New York, NY: Routledge.

Snyder, D. K., & Balderrama-Durbin, C. (2020). Current status and challenges in systemic family therapy with couples. In K. Wampler et al. (Eds.), Handbook of systemic family therapy: Vol. 3 (pp. 3-25). New York, NY: Wiley.

Balderrama-Durbin, C., Snyder, D. K., Heyman, R. E., & Haynes, S. N. (2020). Systemic and culturally-sensitive assessment of couple distress. In K. Wampler et al. (Eds.), Handbook of systemic family therapy: Vol. 3 (pp. 27-48). New York, NY: Wiley.

Affiliated Research Cluster

Personality Processes. Objective personality assessment; clinical assessment of couples and families.