WHAT IS MARRIAGE COUNSELING? HOW TO DO?
Marriage counseling is a psychological counseling process that focuses on the relationship system between two people who are romantically linked (married, engaged, lover and living together). The concept of marriage (couple) counseling is used synonymously with concepts such as relationship counseling, couple counseling, marriage and relationship counseling, couple and family counseling, family and couple therapy, marriage therapy, family therapy, marriage and family counseling in everyday language.
Marriage counseling service is provided by psychologists, social workers and psychological counselors who have been trained in the solution of marriage and family problems. Practitioners who have been trained in marriage and family counseling are called marriage counselors, and those who receive marriage counseling service are called counsellors.
What is Marriage Counseling?
The psychological counseling process that systematically approaches the relationship of two people who have an emotional bond between them is called marriage (couple) counseling. Marriage and relationship counseling is a form of emotional, intellectual and behavioral relearning in healthy communication and interaction in a safe environment offered by the counselor to the couple. While helping both partners in their individual development, the marriage counselor also helps the couple work as a team to improve and develop their relationships and establish a harmonious relationship with their social environment.
The marriage counselor helps the couple to have a healthier marriage relationship by using special marriage counseling techniques to eliminate the factors that impair the functionality of the couple and to increase the couple’s harmony. Couples come with a lot of problems and conflicts before getting marriage and family counseling services. Acute marital crises, root family problems, sexual dysfunction, jealousy, infidelity and communication problems are some of them. Most chits are in a marital crisis or cycle of destructive arguments when it comes to marriage counseling. They often feel inadequate in their problem-solving skills.
What Are the Purposes of Marriage Counseling?
Marriage and relationship counseling focuses on how couples communicate with each other, how to communicate more effectively and how to approach their problems in a more solution-oriented manner. For this reason, the Marriage and family counselor first observes the content of the couple’s conflicts and how they argue.
Couples accepting differences, changing dysfunctional marital relationship patterns, teaching successful problem-solving techniques, strengthening the bond between spouses, teaching that they have mutual responsibility while working on problems, learning negotiation techniques, listening skills and understanding each other’s perspectives in their relationships. are some of the main goals of marriage and relationship therapy.
What Are the Most Common Marriage (relationship) Problems that Bring a Couple to Therapy?
- Emotional intimacy.
- Trust issues.
- Indifference and disconnection of the spouse.
- Inability to communicate.
- Anger out of control.
- Raising children.
- sexual problems.
- Injury (deception/deception).
- Financial problems.
- Problems in the extended family.
- Divorce / separation.
- Jealousy.
Why Do Couples Have Relationship Problems?
Although couples have problems due to a wide variety of reasons, they mostly experience marital problems and relationship incompatibility due to individual reasons, reasons related to couple interaction and environmental reasons.
Reasons for Couple Interaction
In marriage counseling, most of the time, couples come with the point of view that the problem is caused by their spouse, and if the spouse changes, the problem will disappear. The interesting thing is that the other spouse thinks that his wife should change in the same way. At this point the relationship is locked. The deadlock causes the marriage problem to continue. He is right on both sides. In this case, no problem can be solved. Unending marital conflicts become unpredictable and ongoing.
What will solve the deadlock is for each partner to learn and accept responsibility for their own behavior. The marriage therapist helps both parties come to an agreement to let go of the idea that the other spouse is the culprit entirely. Encourages and encourages each partner in small steps to restructure interactions between them.
Bad communication between the couple is one of the most important factors that cause relationship problems. Couples fall into negative interaction patterns, with blaming, criticism, defensiveness, resentment, lack of empathy, and interactional issues. Domination/submission, demand/withdrawal, and Blame/blame cycles are just a few of them. These cycles completely take control of the couple’s relationship from the couple.
Couples are often unaware of these cycles. In fact, once these cycles are formed, they forget why they are arguing and start fighting over how they are arguing this time. These cycles tend to heat up very quickly. Once the cycle has escalated, both partners have no choice but to be trapped in a cycle of escape and withdrawal to protect themselves from the pain.
Individual Causes
Most of the time, the things that spouses expect and need from the relationship are different from each other. This situation makes problems in bilateral relations inevitable. For example, one spouse wants more intimacy and intimacy, while the other needs more privacy and boundaries. This often leads to relationship mismatch. As the intimate partner approaches their partner, the other partner withdraws. This withdrawal causes the intimacy-seeker to become anxious and want more intimacy. In response to this, the spouse seeking autonomy becomes more withdrawn. After a while, this ongoing situation between the couple turns into a demand / withdrawal interaction cycle and gradually becomes a situation that the couple cannot get out of.
Likewise, individual differences can cause problems in close bilateral relations. For example: one of the spouses may be introverted, speaking less, while the other may be extroverted a lot. One is calm like still water, while the other is like a rough sea. The energy level of one is low, the other is higher. As a result of these individual differences, unmet needs and disappointments can cause marital problems such as incompatibility and marital dissatisfaction. In marriage counseling, spouses learn new ways to express their needs without blaming or getting defensive.
Although marriage counseling focuses on the current marital problems of the couple, family and marriage therapy can be recommended in cases such as depression, anxiety, substance and alcohol abuse. In addition, unresolved individual problems such as depression, anxiety disorders and personality disorders in one or both spouses can further complicate marital problems. In such cases, making use of individual therapy as well as couple therapy can be very beneficial for the client.
Environmental (social) causes
Couples live in a social environment such as families, school, work environment, social institutions. All these environmental factors wait for the couple to adapt to these factors. Serious environmental factors such as unemployment, migration, economic losses, natural disasters such as earthquakes may exceed the couple’s capacity to adapt. In such cases, the stress of marriage increases.
Likewise, meeting the expectations of their spouses’ families and adapting to what they want can be the main cause of great tension and relationship incompatibility between the couple. Often spouses tend to ignore or underestimate these external factors that disrupt their relationship.
How Is Marriage Counseling Done?
A marriage counselor provides a safe environment for the couple to address their difficult issues and frustrations. This safe environment controls the couple’s emotional outbursts. The marriage and family counselor first listens to the couple together. Understanding each of them’s concerns, perspectives and positions in the relationship, he builds a trusting relationship with each of them. Learns the couple’s main grievances and the strengths of the relationship.
Then the spouses listen separately. In these individual interviews, each spouse’s individual history is taken. It is tried to be understood how each spouse perceives their marital problems. The information obtained in the joint meeting, illuminating information is collected. Couples therapist concerns each spouse’s marriage; learns about their positive or negative contributions to marital functionality. The marriage therapist encourages each partner to make positive and cooperative efforts.
Marriage and family counselor maintains impartiality by approaching each spouse equally. During the marriage counseling process, they do not allow the couples to say hurtful and hurtful words to each other. Instead of talking about the past and blaming, the couple adopts a solution-oriented approach to the problem; leads to positive communication and listening. The marriage counselor always points the arrow towards the current functioning of the marital relationship, and how they will respond more positively to each other to harmonize their relationship in the future.
Under the guidance of the therapist, each spouse has the opportunity to work together as a couple as a couple to express their expectations, needs and frustrations from the relationship, and to produce solutions.
In the marriage counseling process, the marriage counselor makes a case formulation by evaluating the couple’s relationship in terms of individual, interpersonal and social factors. Problem areas and strengths in the relationship are communicated to the couple by the counselor. In this context, he gives information on how to solve problems and how he can help them and what the responsibilities of the couple will be in this process.
In the marriage counseling process, the marriage counselor and the couple work together as a team to solve problems by using appropriate couple and family therapy techniques.
Shu. Guldane Kavgaci
Family and Marriage Therapist & Sexual Therapist
