Professor Kim Halford

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BBSc (Honours), PhD

Professor, School of Psychology

Head. School of Psychology

Professor Halford is a clinical psychologist whose work focuses upon couple and family relationships, and how healthy relationships help people to adapt to major life events.
He researches the determinants of relationship satisfaction and stability, and how to promote healthy couple relationships both through relationship education for currently well functioning couples, and couple therapy for distressed couples.
Published 4 books, and over 120 articles in the field, and has been continuously funded in his work by national competitive funding agencies for more than 20 years.
Significant contributions of his work include the development of brief couple therapy approaches, assessment and reduction of risk of future relationship problems, the use of self-directed learning processes for promoting healthy couple relationships, and how couple relationships interact with individual health and parenting.
Heads a team that developed the Couple Commitment and Relationship Enhancement program, a self-directed learning program for couples that has been widely adopted internationally.
Currently work focuses upon developing and evaluating relationship enhancement programs for couples in the transition to parenthood, step-families, and couples in crisis as a result of diagnosis of cancer in one of the partners.

Professor Halford teaches adult clinical psychology with a focus upon couple and family therapy.

Halford, W. K., (in press). Marriage and relationship education: what works and how to provide it. New York: Guilford.
Halford, W. K., Lizzio, A., Wilson, K.L., and Occhipinti, S. (2007). Does working at your relationship help? Couple relationship self-regulation and satisfaction in the first 4 years of marriage. Journal of Family Psychology, 21, 185-194.
Halford, W. K., Moore, E. M., Wilson, K. L., Dyer, C., and Farrugia, C. (2004). Benefits of a flexible delivery relationship education: An evaluation of the Couple CARE program. Family Relations, 53, 469-476.
Halford, W. K., Sanders, M. R., and Behrens, B. C. (2001). Can skills training prevent relationship problems in at-risk couples? Four-year effects of a behavioral relationship education program. Journal of Family Psychology, 15, 750-768.
Halford, W. K. (2001). Brief Couple Therapy. New York:Guilford.