Yeah, I thought so
My wife and I have seen several counselors over the years. Swallow your pride, go get some help, do whatever it takes to make things better. But I've come away every time thinking that they hadn't a clue how to help us. I have thought of the counseling arts that they think getting you to communicate is tantamount to solving your problem. But we "present" (as they say) our issues having communicated long and intensely. We really don't have trouble communicating. We are both quite good at it, thank you very much. We know what the blasted problems are. We don't need your help figuring that out. We need help with solutions. Apparently they don't teach those in counselor college. I have long suspected that, but then I ran into this the other day:
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Married With Problems? Therapy May Not Help
By SUSAN GILBERT Published: April 19, 2005
New York Times:
Each year, hundreds of thousands of couples go into counseling in an effort to save their troubled relationships.
But does marital therapy work? Not nearly as well as it should, researchers say. Two years after ending counseling, studies find, 25 percent of couples are worse off than they were when they started, and after four years, up to 38 percent are divorced.
Many of the counseling strategies used today, like teaching people to listen and communicate better and to behave in more positive ways, can help couples for up to a year, say social scientists who have analyzed the effectiveness of different treatments. But they are insufficient to get couples through the squalls of conflict that inevitably recur in the long term.
At the same time, experts say, many therapists lack the skills to work with couples who are in serious trouble.
Unable to help angry couples get to the root of their conflict and forge a resolution, these therapists do one of two things: they either let the partners take turns talking week after week, with no end to the therapy in sight, or they give up on the couple and, in effect, steer them to divorce.
"Couples therapy can do more harm than good when the therapist doesn't know how to help a couple," said Dr. Susan M. Johnson, professor of psychology at the University of Ottawa and director of the Ottawa Couple and Family Institute...
______________________________
Married With Problems? Therapy May Not Help
By SUSAN GILBERT Published: April 19, 2005
New York Times:
Each year, hundreds of thousands of couples go into counseling in an effort to save their troubled relationships.
But does marital therapy work? Not nearly as well as it should, researchers say. Two years after ending counseling, studies find, 25 percent of couples are worse off than they were when they started, and after four years, up to 38 percent are divorced.
Many of the counseling strategies used today, like teaching people to listen and communicate better and to behave in more positive ways, can help couples for up to a year, say social scientists who have analyzed the effectiveness of different treatments. But they are insufficient to get couples through the squalls of conflict that inevitably recur in the long term.
At the same time, experts say, many therapists lack the skills to work with couples who are in serious trouble.
Unable to help angry couples get to the root of their conflict and forge a resolution, these therapists do one of two things: they either let the partners take turns talking week after week, with no end to the therapy in sight, or they give up on the couple and, in effect, steer them to divorce.
"Couples therapy can do more harm than good when the therapist doesn't know how to help a couple," said Dr. Susan M. Johnson, professor of psychology at the University of Ottawa and director of the Ottawa Couple and Family Institute...
posted by wingman at 5:12 PM
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