As these studies show, polyamorous clients who seek out therapy are often stigmatized and penalized by the very system of human services originally set up to help them in such crises (Sussman, 1974, cited in Roman et al., 1978, p.409). It is noteworthy that Knapp (1975) found that therapists considered people who were involved in secret extramarital affairs to be more 'normal' than those who communicated honestly with their partners about their participation in other relationships.
These therapists' views are not concealed from their polyamorous clients. Rubin and Adams (1978, cited in Hymer & Rubin, 1982) found that among those clients who had a sexually open marriage and sought therapy, 27% indicated that their therapists were non-supportive of their non-monogamous relationship (p.533).
Sometimes this disapproval was expressed in overt ways, and other times it was more covert. While not all therapists evidenced such biases, enough did that many clients became wary of seeking mental health services. Knapp (1975, cited in Hymer & Rubin, 1982) noted that the three greatest fears facing prospective alternative lifestyle clients were: therapists' condemnation of their lifestyle, pressure to return to a 'healthier' form of marriage, and being diagnosed in terms of psychopathology (p. 533).
The clinical portrait that some therapists have painted of polyamorous clients is a rather negative one. Is it in fact a realistic one? The next section of this presentation examines whether the negative view of polyamorous individuals that some therapists have expressed is borne out by empirical data.
What is known about the psychological and social functioning of polyamorous individuals?
In 1976, Knapp administered a battery of standardized psychological assessment measures to a sample of polyamorous couples (Peabody, 1982). No significant differences were found between the couples in her sample and the general population norms. That is, neither group was particularly neurotic, immature, promiscuous, maladjusted, pathological, or sexually inadequate... The response patterns suggested a modal type of individual in a sexually open marriage who was individualistic, an academic achiever, creative, nonconforming, stimulated by complexity and chaos, inventive, relatively unconventional and indifferent to what others said, concerned abut his/her own personal values and ethical systems, and willing to take risks to explore possibilities (p. 429). Watson (1981, cited in Rubin, 1982) gave the California Psychological Inventory (Gough, 1957) to 38 sexually open individuals, and these subjects also scored within normal bounds.
Additional work has been done in the area of marital adjustment. Buunk (1980, cited in Rubin, 1982) found that couples with open marriages in the Netherlands were normal in terms of marriage satisfaction, self-esteem, and neuroticism. Spanier's (1976) Dyadic Adjustment Scale was used to compare sexually open couples with sexually exclusive ones (Rubin, 1982), and no differences were found in adjustment or happiness between the two groups. Nothing in this data argues for the view that sexual openness or exclusivity, in and of themselves, make a difference in the overall adjustment of a married couple (p. 107).
A follow-up study (Rubin & Adams, 1986) found that after several years, there was no significant difference in marital stability (i.e. breaking up vs. staying together) between those couples who had been polyamorous versus those whose marriages had been exclusive. Similar proportions of each group reported happiness versus unhappiness, compared to the earlier sample. Additionally, the reasons given for breakup were almost never related to extramarital sex (p. 318). When polyamorous relationships ended, common reasons given included growing apart in general interests, feeling unequal levels of attraction to one another, and dealing with the stresses of long-distance (Ramey, 1975).
Another study (Peabody, 1982) found that most respondents reported feeling satisfied with their primary relationship, and felt positively about their partner having sexual relations with others.
