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This article presents a brief systemic therapy (BST) consisting in six sessions developed in an inpatient service for couples and families, and two research projects in collaboration with the Institute for Psychotherapy of the University of Lausanne. The first project is quantitative and aims at evaluating the effectiveness of ISB. One of its main features is that outcomes are assessed at different levels of individual and family functioning: (1) symptoms and individual functioning; (2) quality of marital relationship; (3) parental and co-parental relationships; (4) familial relationships. The second project is a qualitative case study about a couples therapy which identifies and analyzes significant moments of the therapeutic process from the patients’ perspective. This methodology was largely inspired by Daniel Stern’s work on “moments of encounter” in psychotherapy. Results show that patients’ theories about relationships and change are important elements that deepen our understanding of the change process in couple and family therapy. The interest of associating clinicians and researchers for the development and validation of a new clinical model is discussed.