Individual Therapy Can Lead to Divorce
Individual therapy can hurt your marriage. An individual therapist can very subtly lead you to divorce, or help you be firmer in your resolve to divorce.
Too often, marriage counselors also give subtle and sometimes direct messages for the client with a problem marriage to divorce. Some clients either want to please the counselor, or don't want to appear stupid in the counselor's eyes. The client would feel pressured to think and move in the direction of divorce in order to stay with that counselor.
These counselors might have wonderful credentials and be well-meaning.
Sometimes, the counselor is thinking, "I certainly wouldn't want to live in a relationship like that, so my best advice is to steer my client away from those problems." A related motivation is to see the client's marital problem(s) as too severe or perhaps irreparable, meaning that the solution is beyond what the counselor can imagine facilitating.
Counselors have their own prejudices and personal experiences, as well as their strengths, and weaknesses.
For example, if a couple comes into the office and they start screaming at each other, a counselor might have trouble with that situation for any number of reasons: such as having left home that morning in a screaming battle with her or his spouse, or perhaps the counselor was physically abused as a child, or the counselor might never have had success when couples were actively arguing, or the counselor might be squeamish about raw emotions for other reasons.
If the client begins to comply with the counselor's suggestions to emotionally and physically retreat from the spouse, there will be a relief of immediate pressure.
That relief can be directed by the counselor into feeling better in the short term.The client and the counselor both think the counseling is working. The concepts of family, commitment, long-term relationships, the children's long-term best interests, and character get lost in the process.
Dr. William Doherty has an excellent article on this topic. He is the director of the National Registry of Marriage Friendly Therapists. He recognized this problem and wanted to do something about it so he created a registry of fully-credentialed marriage therapists who are committed to supporting marriages.
Some of Dr. Doherty's important points in his essay include the results of studies showing the lack of commitment and knowledge in the field of marriage counseling. Secondly, he points out that the majority of those doing marital counseling who were trained as individual counselors have their commitment to doing what is best for the individual, not for the couple or the children. You can read more of his article here How Therapists Harm Marriages and What We Can Do About It.
You can reach me at 410-654-1300 in Pikesville, Maryland which is part of Baltimore or toll-free 1-866-654-1300.
Frank Gunzburg, Ph.D., P.A.
Back to Marriage Counseling and Marriage Help Home Page
Back to Free Marriage Tips and Advice Main Page
