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Does Marriage Counseling Work?

If you have been considering the option of marriage counseling, you may also be wondering if it will be worth it. Almost everyone knows someone who has been through some form of counseling and often marriage counseling often is associated with a lack of success. The stories of failed counseling will make you question whether it will work for you or not. Many common questions arise when the consideration of marriage counseling comes up in conversation, and there are generally mixed answers depending on who you ask.

Why Are So Many People Skeptical About Couples Counseling?

In the past 30 years or so, marriage counseling has come a long way. Understandably though, people are still rather skeptical about it, because for such a long time the failure rate was as high as the success rates. Marriage counseling results today are far better than they used to be. However, the failure rates are what tends to turn people off the idea. The biggest issue of course with marriage counseling failures is that the people who fail may be already too far removed from a healthy marriage to repair, or even want to repair it.

Marriage counseling needs to be a two-way street, and if one party does not want to repair the marriage, or the other person has set their expectations too high of their partner, it may be too far gone. A couple of things that marriage counseling will teach, however, whether it fails or succeeds, is how to communicate with each other better and appreciate the other person’s point of view.

How Effective Is Marriage Therapy?

Compared where marriage counseling was a few short decades ago, results of success are up around 75%, where in the 80’s it was sitting around 50%. One commonly used therapy today is emotionally focused therapy which is based on decades of research and focuses on different ways to reconnect people and change the way they communicate with each other. This method is integrated into Dr. Danielle Forshee, Psy.D., ’s marriage counseling sessions while following the tenets of Gottman Method strategies, which is another well-researched and successful marital counseling strategy.

How Does Marriage Counseling Work?

Marriage counseling provides individuals with the strategies and in-office experience of modifying the restricted patterns of communication between a couple in distressed relationships. The idea is to change the emotional responses toward each other to strengthen the emotional bond between them. It is important to note that without the motivation and commitment to change, your situation will most likely remain the same. Opening the channels of communication is the first step.