Even in the face of rising divorce rates, no couple includes the vow, "And in 5 years we hope to divorce." Marriage is seen as a commitment -- for keeps. When distress abounds, couples are faced with a number of survival strategies. Depending on the issue, some couples will bind together to overcome adversity. Other couples may run in opposite directions, losing the benefit of mutual support, and others will simply hunker down to ride out the storm. Interestingly, recent research suggests that of unhappy couples that do hunker down, two-thirds become happy couples after a period of about five years.
For those that cannot hunker down or pull together, marital therapy is seen as strategy to get on track.
Marital therapy is more often provided by persons whose training is primarily in individual therapy, as if to say all therapy is alike. 80 per cent of all private practice therapists in the United States say they do marital therapy even though they might not have taken even one course or had any supervised experience. This leaves consumers of marital therapy at a distinct disadvantage when looking for a therapist.
Very often the call for therapy comes from only one member of the marriage. The caller is often distressed and looking for help with the marriage. The caller may request to see the therapist alone first to deal with their intense feelings, or alternatively they may assume that their spouse will refuse to attend. A therapist trained in individual therapy will likely see the caller alone. A therapist trained in marital therapy will strongly recommend that the couple be seen together and will explain that beginning alone may increase the probability of a break-up and that the spouse would reasonably reject coming in later, concerned for a pre-established bias on the part of the therapist from having met first with the caller.
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