All couples have conflicts or disagreements at times. The difference between a happily married (or otherwise committed) couple and an unhappy union most frequently involves the ability to discuss and resolve those differences in a positive manner that respects the interests and needs of each individual.
Marriage counseling, also called couples therapy, helps couples — married or not — understand and resolve conflicts and improve their relationship. Marriage counseling gives couples the tools to communicate better, negotiate differences, problem solve and even argue in a healthier way.
Marriage Counseling can also help couples who plan to get married. This pre-marriage counseling can help you achieve a deeper understanding of each other and iron out differences before a union is sealed.
Marriage counseling typically brings couples or partner together for joint therapy session. Marriage counseling can also help you learn skills to solidify your relationship. These skills may include communicating openly, problem solving together and discussing differences rationally. The concept of Marriage counseling or marital therapy is relatively new to India (though not very new), Compared to more than forty thousand marriage counselors or therapists in US and Canada. |
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The purpose of a marriage counselor, from my perspective, is to guide you through
(1) Emotional Minefields
(2) Motivational swamps
(3) Creative wildernesses
The Emotional Minefields represent the predictable, yet overwhelmingly painful experiences that many couples go through as they try to adjust to each other's emotional reactions. Hurt feelings are the most common, but depression, anger, panic, paranoia and many others seem to pop up without warning. These emotions distract couples from their goal of creating romantic love, and often sabotage the entire effort.
A good marriage counselor helps couples avoid many of these emotional landmines and is there for damage control when they're triggered. He/she does this by understanding the enormous stress couples are under as they are facing one of their greatest crises. When one or both spouses become emotionally upset, he/she has the skill to diagnose and treat the emotional reactions effectively. A good counselor knows how to calm the couple down and assure them that their emotional reactions are not a sign of hopeless incompatibility.
The Motivational swamps represent the feeling of discouragement that most couples experience. They often feel that any effort to improve their marriage is a waste of time.
Discouragement is contagious. When one spouse is discouraged, the other quickly follows. Encouragement, on the other hand, is often met with skepticism by the other spouse. So its easy to be discouraged, and difficult to be encouraged, when you are trying to solve marital problems. A marriage counselor should be there to provide needed encouragement when there's none other in sight.
The Creative wilderness represents the typical inability of couples in marital crisis to create solutions to their problems. Many marital problems require solutions that are unique to certain circumstances.
A good marriage counselor is a good strategy resource. While you can, and should, also think of ways to solve your marital problems, a marriage counselor should know how to solve problems like yours. That's what you pay him/her to do! And his strategy should make sense to you. In fact, his strategy should encourage you in the belief that your problems will be over soon. Counselors often obtain special training for many common marital problems, such as sexual incompatibility and financial conflicts. These counselors can document a high rate of success in finding solutions to those problems.
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