Skills vs. Counseling
Should you see a counselor?
Should you take a training course in relationship skills?
Should you do both?
Old Cultural Remedies: “Hang in There and Hope” or “Get Counseling”
When first the competition for control removes the joy of courtship from marriage, repairs could work. But, most people do nothing, hoping things will get better, without any idea of how.
Some try counseling, but counseling rarely produces lasting change. Counseling enhances communication and understanding at the moment. But counseling has neither the theory to understand the cause of our cultural changes in marriage nor the intention of creating new skills altering that culture. (John Gottman)
Counseling is wonderful for understanding the sources of our training in the skills we use to create conflict and combat. Counseling understands every conflict becomes communication problems stemming from differences in styles, in understanding and expectation and in childhood learning and trauma.
We use counseling for crisis intervention, for help in assessing the pain and stopping it and for developing strategies that take into account the pain people are in while people learn new skills.
When pathology is involved or when crisis occurs, counselors are vital for your well being. However, if you are not happy, if your marriage is an emotional desert, those are symptoms telling you of missing skills.
Counseling applies a remedy for pathology, a problem different from marital difficulties. Counseling is interesting, and the attention often improves things for a time, because it gives a feeling of hope and a promise of improvements. But until the use of new skills change the underlying dynamic in the relationship, it will continue to work painfully.
The best counseling, measured by successes in preventing divorce, comes through those trained by John Gottman, Ph.D. He teaches people to acquire the characteristics of those who stay married. This marital counseling does not study happiness, profess the skills to create it nor intend its direct creation. It merely intends to reduce divorce.
Relationship Transformation skills bring connection to any relationship. Contact us to register for our classes or for an immediate repair intervention to stop the pain and plan a recovery.